


Gatekeeper, Gatekeeper

by damnitgreenberg



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dubious Consent (of the magical variety), Endgame Sterek, Feel Free To Suggest More Tags, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Manipulation, Mind Control, Miscommunication, Naiads And Nemetons, Sterek High School Romance (didn't end well), Telepathy, Underage Drinking, Violence, Werewolves being werewolves, one sided Stydia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 04:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 77,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4652049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnitgreenberg/pseuds/damnitgreenberg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kept out of the loop of the secrets and supernatural mysteries of Beacon Hills, Stiles Stilinski is a senior who sees his world unraveling around him. After a bad argument with his best friend, Stiles is dragged into a mysterious pool of water that grants him superpowers. His transformation quickly takes a dark turn and threatens to hurt the people around him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks has to go to the ever patient Asylum94, who beta'd this for me. Any errors here are entirely my own. You always roll with the punches; you're awesome!
> 
> I also want to thank the mods of this Reverse Bang, who let me post on Amnesty Week. I've always wanted to do a reverse bang, but dun goofed up by signing up for this one. (Note to self-don't schedule your writing time during your busiest time of the year?) But I'm glad it worked out!
> 
> Lastly, I would like to thank my awesome artist, OneTerribleT, whose work inspired this--check it out below! T, you were so chill about everything, from my stalling for time to my plot line. Thank you for working with me and giving me such an awesome art prompt!

June 2013 

The classroom door swung open. A fluorescent light bulb shattered—one at first, then the next three in a row. Graded English essays blew off the teacher’s table, spinning to the floor under some nonexistent wind. Tables shuddered faintly—softly at first, then harder as the last light cracked. The room was swept into darkness. 

Then, and only then, did the teenage boy approach the windows and look out.

“I need your help,” Stiles whispered into a cell phone. His mouth was numb and cold, his fingers bluish gray. His throat tasted like copper and ash.

“I can’t. I’m sorry.” Despite the apology, Scott’s tone seemed distracted and rushed. “I’m not even in town. Can it wait until I get back?”

After a beat, Stiles, detached, looked down through the window. Outside, Scott led a group of their peers—Erica and Boyd, Isaac and Cora too—to a car in the parking lot. They piled in together in a panicked rush, Isaac sliding over the hood to get to the other side.

His hand swung down to his leg. “No,” he murmured, his voice joining another’s. The phone slipped from his nerveless fingers. 

Blankly, he stared through the window, beyond it, but if he’d cared to look, if he cared to see, he could have watched in the reflection of the glass the girl behind him, stroking one finger down his bloodied face.

-

April 2013

“Do _not_ ruin this for me, Stiles Stilinski,” Heather hissed between her teeth. Stiles fell into step next to her, adjusting the collar of his bright orange WWEC t-shirt. It itched. Heather looked amazing in it, somehow rocking the orange with her blond curly hair and denim shorts. “This is the first time the camp director let me take charge as head counselor, and I’m not going to have you-”

“Have me what, Heather?” Stiles argued right back, tripping forward. “I’ll have you know I’m a perfectly good-”

Heather continued, ignoring him. “-light something else on fire because of some mismanaged god complex…”

They rounded a corner together, Stiles echoing her words in a high pitched and scandalized tone. “ _Mismanaged god complex?!_ I-”

Heather pushed through the double doors of the community room. The argument came to an abrupt stop, as they were no longer alone. Instantly recalling the brutal training two days before, they both flashed the room mega-wattage grins. 

“Welcome!” 

The cheerful call echoed in the room obnoxiously. Their five to eleven year old audience looked like they had collectively bitten into a massive, extremely sour lemon. This scenario had not been covered in the training manual. Unless Stiles was seeing things, one of the campers’ parents had fallen asleep against a shelf. 

Out of ideas, Stiles looked at Heather expectantly. 

Heather jolted at that, immediately facing the group. “So, um….” She clapped her hands together, looking nervous for the first time since she convinced him to become an unpaid worker for the understaffed Wilderness and Wildlife Education Center. 

Charity. Community service. Bettering youthful minds and improving the environment. Yeah, right. 

“So welcome to the 2013 Spring Youth Camper Retreat! I’m very excited to meet you and-” 

The sleeping parent let out a loud, snuffling snore. Another one was very determined to pay 110% of his attention to his phone. If that wasn’t enough, one of the children in the middle was giving the pair of them the evil eye, like she was planning on punching someone in the throat. Children were scary and Heather, newly minted leader person, was at a loss as to what to do when your campers’ (and your parents’) enthusiasm did not match your own. 

“…and… yeah,” she finished, frowning. She immediately faked a smile. 

Behind her, Stiles crossed his arms over his chest. “Remind me why I’m spending my last high school spring break with you?” he muttered.

“Because you can’t function without Scott?” Heather hissed at him through her teeth.

“Scott’s not the end all and be all of my life,” Stiles snapped unconvincingly.

Heather widened her eyes, all faux-innocence. “So you’re dating someone now?” Stiles gaped at her. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Now, shut up and help me.” She shoved him towards the cranky girl and Sir Snores A Lot and Lord I Can’t Put Down My Smartphone. “Remember the training! Pep pep pep.” She raised her voice, addressing the group. “Now, everyone, we’re going to start the day right with a little ice breaker by getting into groups. My assistant Stiles will be _happy_ to help you all get to know each other.”

And her tone said she would be _happy_ to eviscerate him should he not comply. Stiles was instantly all smiles.

God, he hated her.

-

October 2009

Stiles slammed his locker closed. Good riddance, English textbook. He tapped his head against the metal twice, sighing with frustration. Ugh, what a terrible class.

He pulled away from the locker with a twisted expression. He’d had some thought in his head that classes in high school would be different—more exciting, more exploratory, more… interesting! And certainly less tedious. 

Stiles sighed again, this time with resignation. He rubbed his palm over his buzz cut. Oh, well. Might as well get used to the fact that ninth grade was no different than eighth grade in every category. 

“Hey!”

Well. Not every category. Stiles bit down on a smile. Ack, cut that crap out, face. He mentally flailed at himself. Be cool, be cool.

Hands clamped over his eyes. “Guess who?” 

“Guess? I don’t need to _guess_ ,” Stiles retorted, hands flying up. “I can smell you from a mile away. Go shower, you’re gross.” He pried the palms away from his eyes and turned around, pulling his best unimpressed look out of his arsenal.

But Derek Hale just smiled back at him, unrepentant and glowing. So much for being gross.

If Stiles had to describe Derek to someone, he’d have a hard time making the guy sound… you know… real. But anyone who met Derek would instantly know who he was talking about, even if Stiles was coy with the details. 

Blessed with the gorgeous Hale genetics, the junior drew attention wherever he went with his jet black hair, long tanned limbs, and intense eyes. He was lean from basketball, a sport he effortlessly dominated, and was ridiculously smart. He was a giant puppy ninety percent of the time, especially where his family was involved, but, if you got him worked up enough, his glower could wither plants.

Oh, and did Stiles mention that Derek was Stiles’ also ex-tutor for Physical Science? And MVP of both the basketball team _and_ the baseball team? 

And also kind of sort of Stiles’ boy-friend? Probably Derek’s best achievement there, if you asked Stiles… 

Oh, who was Stiles kidding. He was shocked that was a thing too. Stiles didn’t like to think how he looked next to Derek—short, baby faced… incomplete, maybe. And they didn’t even run in the same circles either. Or the same grade. They’d met because Stiles was dismally failing science and Derek was a shameless teacher’s pet. Arguing over Stiles’ nonexistent study skills devolved pretty quickly into them making out under the bleachers and passing notes to each other through their lockers. It was basically perfect. But they still had issues. Lots of them. A whole wagonful, even. Stiles could make jokes about a lot of things, but not about the dark spots in their relationships, the red flags that waved at him from miles and miles away. Like the fact that Derek jumped away from him like a scalded cat whenever his brother Erik rounded the corner. Like the fact that Stiles was good enough to invite home when Derek was dragging him, kicking and screaming, through his homework assignments, but not good enough when they were actually dating. Like the fact that Derek stared at him sometimes, intensity in his gaze, like he had words in his mouth and on his heart and wanted to say them… but wouldn’t, for whatever reason. 

Yeah, issues. And Stiles didn’t want to touch them, not one little bit. His fledgling relationship with Derek was everything he ever wanted out of a high school relationship, everything that all those coming-of-age movies promised him since he first sat down in front of a television. Just because he could see the cracks in the dream didn’t mean he wanted to poke at them with a stick and make them bigger.

“So, are you coming to the game this Friday?” Derek asked, knocking his shoulder into the locker. He leaned on it, crossing his arms and winging his eyebrows up. Everything about his posture screamed causal, if not for the downward sweep of his eyelashes, like he rather be looking at the floor when Stiles said no.

“Sure,” Stiles said. “I mean, if there’s room in the stands.” Which was a legit problem at their school when Hales were on the field. But Derek lit up anyway.

And maybe Derek’s answering smile couldn’t chase away the problems in their relationships, but it was… something. Definitely something, and something important too. Stiles just didn’t have the words for it yet.

-

April 2013

Stiles named the potential throat punching girl “Wee Thor”, as her scowl was something to rival a Norse god’s. Radiating disapproval like a sprinkler spat out water, Heather immediately assigned Stiles Wee Thor for the rest of the day’s activities, which was just cruel. So cruel. Wee Thor was still in her biting phase.

“Nibbling, really,” Stiles amended, looking at the row of teeth marks on his arm. Aw. He liked Wee Thor. She had such tiny teeth…

“Stop complaining,” Heather said with sigh. They walked together down the front hallway of the Wilderness and Wildlife Education Center—no, really, walking was overstating it. Instead, they limped, but it was with a sense of triumph. All the children were gone and in one piece. Their shifts were up in about thirty minutes, and there was nothing more beautiful to Stiles in that moment than the idea of parents walking out that front door without sixty pounds of destruction hanging off each arm and shouting camp songs. 

“We sent a letter home,” Heather continued, eyelids drooping. They stopped in front of the closed community room door. “Now all that’s left is…” She trailed off, grimacing. Then, as if to finish her sentence, she pushed open the door. 

The community room had been transformed into a classroom for the day, and the children had left their mark. There was paint from ceiling to floor and sticky residue handprints on the windows. One of the six tables was lying, inexplicably, on its side—which Stiles didn’t remember happening at all. There was also a mysterious pile of soil in the back corner surrounded by oddly shaped rocks. And if that wasn’t enough, someone wrote their name on the chalkboard in bright gold sharpie and stuck a hairy lollipop to the room’s one stuffed animal—Wilderness Wolfy, the center’s mascot.

There was a long pause where the both of them held their breath. This was bad. This was really bad. This was an hour long clean up job, if not more.

Stiles nodded once to himself. “Well, I’m starting to feel my second wind,” he said optimistically, turning to Heather. He gave her a second to absorb that knowledge before shouting, “Not it!” He immediately fled back down the hallway. Once she caught on, a swearing Heather was quick on his heels. 

At the sound of pounding feet, the few staff members of the WWEC poked their heads out of their offices, only to shake them, choosing the nobler choice of nonintervention. The same staff had cowardly hid away when an army of six year olds decided to rid their one twelve year old ”unicorn” into the sunset.

Stiles ignored them and cackled at Heather, picking up the pace. “Cross country, loser!” he called out over his shoulder, elated.

A moment later, a well-aimed shoe at the back of his knee nearly made Stiles eat carpet. “Queen of the Pitcher Mound, nerd!” 

Delighted, Stiles immediately rounded the corner and took the stairs up to the lobby two at a time. He skidded out onto the tile of the dimly lit area of the center, only to stop abruptly in his tracks. Any enjoyment he was feeling, any happiness—kind or cruel—escaped him, leaving him feeling numb.

Heather wasn’t prepared for the stop. She hit his back with a small oomph of complaint, grabbing his arms. Stiles barely noticed.

There was a man standing at the counter speaking to their camp director. Broad shoulders filled out a well-worn leather jacket. Jet black hair stood at attention, and those legs in those jeans? Yeah, Stiles knew who it was immediately, and his heart fell for the knowledge.

“…reviewing the boundaries of our property with you before you start having field trips,” the man was saying, his voice, as always, incongruously soft for the intensity of his gaze.

“Of course, Mr. Hale…”

Heather popped around Stiles’ shoulder. “Wow, who is that?” she whispered in an undertone. She was in awe. Then again, most people were. “That hunk of beautiful definitely didn’t go to my school. We’d still have shrines dedicated in his honor.”

Oh, to be anywhere else but here… “That’s Derek Hale,” Stiles said evenly, proud of the way his voice sounded dull and disinterested. “He went to BHHS.”

“You lucky bastard.”

The camp director saw them there. Marin started making beckoning gestures, fully engaged in outreach mode. Ugh. Stiles made a face and crept away from the door frame. 

“Anyway, stop admiring him out loud,” he muttered to Heather. “He has preternatural hearing when his name is thrown into the mix.” As if to give truth to that, the backs of Derek’s ears were already red.

Next to him, Heather ducked her head, embarrassed. But he had to give her credit. Embarrassment or no embarrassment, she walked tall, especially for someone wearing only one shoe. They made their way over, stopping in front of the counter. Marin Morrell, their perpetually zen boss, circled around it, introducing them to Derek immediately. “Speaking of our camp, here’s our head counselor and our newest recruit.”

Although Derek had half-turned, tracking the woman’s movement, his head remained angled away, his gaze on the floor. “Stiles,” he greeted stilted.

“Derek,” Stiles retorted. That got him Derek’s eyes, which almost made him swallow his tongue. Stiles hadn’t seen the guy in over eleven months, but Derek still had the power of making his knees weak with just a look.

“Heather!” Heather blurted out. “My name is Heather.” She stuck her hand out, her straight faced expression demanding—and begging—that he look nowhere but at her face.

As Derek bemusedly shook her hand, Stiles looked him over with a critical eye. Hunk of beautiful wasn’t far off, annoyingly enough. Derek had filled out since high school, looking like he’d spent his lonely days in the forest bench pressing logs. To top off the mountain man look, he had a smear of dirt over his high forehead and was sporting a short beard. He should have looked grubby and gross, but instead looked like he’d stepped out of a painting. About lumberjacks. Or tough guys with hearts of gold.

Damn those Hale genetics. 

“Mountain lions?” Heather was echoing, frowning. Stiles shook his head slightly, forcing himself to refocus on the conversation in front of him. “Here?”

“It appears that they’ve holed up somewhere on our property. Well away from your field trip routes.” Derek glanced back at Director Morrell, who nodded twice. “The standard precautions should be fine, but-”

“Stay away from your property,” Stiles interrupted brusquely. This got him twin scowls, but nothing from Derek himself. Funny thing was? Once upon a time, Stiles’ comment would have been an inside joke. He took a step back. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a room to clean up.” Not waiting for a response, he spun on his heel, heading back the way he came.

“It was good to see you, Stiles,” Derek called out behind him. His tone was hard to read—wary, cautious, neutral. And yet…

“The feeling is not mutual,” Stiles replied. What an asshole. 

Mountain lions, yeah right.

-

September 2010

Okay, so maybe Stiles didn’t think this whole thing through? He was willing to admit to that. In any case, Sheriff Stilinski sure didn’t seem to think so.

“I’m going to cuff you to your bed,” his dad swore angrily, dragging Stiles out from behind the tree. Stiles’ open backpack fell off his shoulder and to the grassy ground, spilling gauze and band aids everywhere in the darkness. Stiles barely held onto his flashlight, his free hand pressed over his racing heart. He lifted it, shining a light into his dad’s face, which immediately prompted Sheriff Stilinski to wince and flap at the flashlight until it was pointed at the roots near their feet. 

Coordinated, the Stilinski clan was not. 

“Just making sure it was you,” Stiles said innocently. He was lying—it was totally revenge for the jump scare. Not cool. “How did you find me?”

“You left a trail of first aid bread crumbs,” Stilinski retorted, eyes narrow. “Now that you got your question in, here’s mine: _what the hell do you think you’re doing_?”

Stiles winced at the near bellow, sticking his pinky in his ear. “…Is that a rhetorical question?”

And Stiles wasn’t dumb, okay? He knew he was throwing gasoline on the fire. His dad would be completely justified to do anything from grounding him for all eternity to yelling some more, and Stiles was prepared for all that. He was.

Just… not for his dad’s actual reaction in that very moment, which was to pull back slightly, eyebrows pushing together. Stilinski looked… at a loss, which was worse. Stiles’ shoulders rounded defensively. Heat rushed to his face.

Stiles could deal with anger. Not with pity. 

The sheriff’s voice, when it finally came, was quiet and measured. “What makes you think you can find him alone, in the dead of night, when my deputies and a canine unit couldn’t find him all day?” There was kindness on his dad’s face, under the frustration and the sympathy. Stiles dropped his gaze after a moment and stared down at his shoes. He knew exactly what he was doing—plying Stiles with logic because feelings wouldn’t work—but Stiles couldn’t get his mind to focus on anything but…

Scott.

Scott had been missing for three days. All anyone at school would talk about was how that “goofy sophomore” was probably being eaten by mountain lions while everyone else was studying for the next waves of tests. “Lucky,” some called him, sighing dramatically. Stiles spent all day listening to that stupidity, listening to people drag Scott’s name through the mud, calling him an idiot—and worse—all the while knowing it was Stiles who talked Scott into going into the Preserve in the first place. Stiles, who backed out at the last minute. Stiles, who left Scott waiting in the forest for a friend who’d never come. 

And all for what? To piss off Derek? To show that, passive aggressive locker notes or not, Stiles wasn’t going to be told what to do? To find out what made his ex-boyfriend so shifty about the Preserve in the last two days? Scott was worth so much more than all that.

“I guess you have a point,” Stiles muttered. He tightened his jaw, focusing his attention on the zipper of Stilinski’s sheriff jacket.

“Look, you… You _can’t_ do this.” Even so, Stilinski paused, taking in Stiles’ face. After a beat, he changed tactics. “How about we make a deal?” Stiles’ eyebrows crunched together in suspicion, but he made a ‘go-on’ gesture with his flashlight. “We’ll call a sick day for you tomorrow and you can join the searches.” Stiles’ head shot up in surprise. Stilinski’s eyes were deadly serious. “But you cannot do this again, Stiles. I-”

“Really?” Even though he was interrupting, Stiles’ voice was a ghost of itself. His dad never let him get involved with police stuff, ever, even when he knew all the grisly details, but this-

Stiles didn’t know what expression he was making, but it made his dad soften. He caught Stiles’ shoulder with his hand, gripping it comfortingly. “Really really. I’ll pair you up with a deputy—and you will not leave their side, understood?”

“Understood. Thank you.” Then, overcome with gratitude for this rare gift, Stiles rushed forward, burying himself in his dad’s arms. “Thank you thank you thank you-“

“Hey, no need for that,” Stilinski said gruffly, but he hugged Stiles back firmly before releasing him. “Now, let’s go. You know what it’s like out here.” A glint of humor warmed his eyes. He smiled, voice lowering with a joke. “We stay out here much longer and we’ll be interrupted by one of those creepy Hales, am I right or am I right-” 

“How fortuitous then.”

Both Stilinskis flailed at the softly worded interruption, nearly dropping their respective flashlights. They turned, turning the light on the interloper, highlighting a woman in a robe.

Thinking he’d just seen a flash of red, Stiles jerked his flashlight all the way up to her face. A moment later, though, Stilinski was yanking it down—because it would be rude to stick a light in the face of the Hale matriarch. Or something. Scowling, Stiles clamped a hand over his chest, feeling as if she’d nearly given him a heart attack.

Talia smiled slowly at them both, as calm as a rock at the bottom of a slow river. “I was just thinking I should call you, but I left my phone at home. Thank goodness you were around.”

“Uh, sure,” Stilinski replied unsteadily, still rattled. He pulled on his ‘official police business’ face. “What did you need, Mrs. Hale?”

“Oh, I _need_ nothing,” she said, tipping her chin up. Her smile turned softer around the edges but no less genuine. “But I did find something that belongs to you.” She stepped off to the left, her long robe swishing around her bare ankles. Years later, stacking up a pile of overwhelming evidence (in hindsight), Stiles would vividly remember that image of a middle age woman walking barefoot and unafraid in a Preserve full of natural hazards.

In the moment, though, Stiles’ priorities shifted almost immediately, for what was behind her was so much more important. 

Scott McCall, wide eyed and shocky with a thousand yard stare. 

-

April 2013

To say that the camp director wasn’t happy with Stiles would be an understatement. After that rough interaction with Derek, Marin asked Stiles to meet her in her office. The “oohs” from the collective staff and volunteers of the WWEC echoed unnecessarily through the halls. Assholes.

She sat him down first, mirroring his position on the other side of the desk. Stiles wasn’t in the best of moods, but even he in that moment could recognize how fair she tried to be with him. How she spoke gently at first, assuming something else was wrong, that it had something to do with his working conditions or problems at home. 

But when Stiles repeatedly stonewalled her, she went firm and lectured him on the importance of being diplomatic with the son of their biggest donor. She made him review all of their “interaction with donors/outside parties” policies and had him sign a good behavior agreement form—one, he noticed, had been drafted for misbehaving children. _Who bit people._

“Wait, I’m not a child.”

Marin rested her chin on her folded hands. “Prove it,” she replied evenly. Ouch.

Worst day ever.

Stiles sulked all the way home and straight up to his room. Once the door was closed, he grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled it off over his head, spraying his floor with a fine dusting of glitter. He had paint marks and teeth imprints on his forearms and a growing bruise on his side. His scalp was sore from where a boy, excited at the free ride on Stiles’ shoulders, yanked his hair hard enough to separate follicles from tender skin. He sat down on his bed and groaned with the effort to bend and take his shoes off. He was soooooore.

He flopped on his back, crossing his arm over his eyes. He let out a raw breath. 

_Children_ , he thought with some annoyance. When that resulting mixture of annoyance and amusement and fondness didn’t match the maelstrom of angry feelings churning in his gut, he regrouped his thoughts. _Hales_ , he decided, and there it was. The source of all his bitterness.

Stiles grimaced, flinging his arms out. Then he rolled on his stomach and pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. He felt rubbed the wrong way by the whole experience. He needed to cool down and begin the brush off sequence, like he would with any other topic or person who frustrated him. But it wasn’t coming. Little Dereks were dancing around in his head, staring at him accusingly. Damn him for still having such power in his life. 

He needed a distraction. 

Stiles fished out his phone from his pants and dialed Scott. Scott picked up by the third ring and Stiles, vibrating with tension, had recited the whole day from start to finish before Scott could even get a proper hello out. 

“…and isn’t he such an asshole?” Stiles finished. He might have complained more about Derek in the three minutes they shared oxygen than all the crabby and grabby children he fended off all day, but that was how bad Derek was, okay? He made Wee Thor look like an angel in comparison.

“Well… he’s Derek,” Scott said neutrally. He used to be the biggest anti-Derek person ever, at least until Talia Hale saved him from mountain lions in sophomore year. Now he’d rarely say anything about the guy, if at all. “Your day, though. Sucks, bro.”

Nice save. “So you see why we need to do something, right?” he pressed. He rolled over to a sitting position, trying to figure out where he kicked off his shoes. “Why we need to distract me? I’m up for anything, as long as I don’t have to think. What should we do?” They still had a few hours until nightfall. His dad didn’t like him out past nine these days, which Stiles was trying to respect as much as possible.

“I’m sorry, I can’t today. I already promised I would spend the day with my other friends.”

“So? Count me in!” Stiles wasn’t terribly fond of Scott’s other friends, but he could pretend for a day he wasn’t insanely jealous over the whole thing.

“Normally, I would,” Scott said, even though that was a complete lie. 

Sometime within the last year or two, Scott’s other friends formed an impenetrable fortress around themselves. Hell, Stiles couldn’t even get Boyd to smile, and Stiles had been working on that front for _years_. Even though they’d been friends once in elementary school, Erica turned into a social porcupine every time Stiles breathed in her presence. And Isaac? There was no two ways about that one. Dude hated Stiles.

“But this isn’t the sort of thing where you can jump in. They need me,” Scott continued. His voice deepened, revealing the sincerity of his feelings. “I just don’t have time this weekend. I’m sorry.” 

“What are you, their den mother?” The flippant joke was old and familiar, and normally Stiles would change the subject. But, after the day he just had, that was the last straw. The anger swelled and took hold of him. His tone turned bitter. “You know what, forget it. When you stop being such a social butterfly, how about you pencil me in your calendar? I’ll be happy to meet with you in 2020. I’m all open.” Then Stiles hung up on him. 

He paused just short of slamming his phone against the dresser. Smartphones plus delicate screens plus impacts? Generally not a good idea. God, he missed the drama of landlines. 

Still frustrated and needing an outlet, Stiles jumped up from the bed. He paced twice in the tight space, his blood buzzing under his skin, before turning and knocking his chair over. It hit the ground with a satisfying crash. 

A beat later, though, Stiles bent over and picked it up again. He was no longer angry, just… drained. Embarrassed. _Humiliated._ He’d went from righteous to pathetic in even his own mind in ten seconds flat, and that was saying something. Stiles was usually the hero in his own head, no matter what was going on.

He rubbed a hand over his face and muttered, “Don’t know what to do without Scott, huh?” Heather was more right than she knew. 

Stiles lost Scott once in sophomore year when he went missing for three days. But the truth of it was that Stiles had lost him again shortly after. Maybe new crowds and new secrets was a better way to lose Scott than a mountain lion, but the ache of it all was still the same. He’d denied it for years, though, and would still keep denying it, still keep orbiting around Scott. 

After all, the last thing he wanted to admit to anyone was that he himself was his only real friend.

-

November 2010

“Oh my god, what are you doing here?” Scott hissed at him, voice high pitched. It would be funnier if Stiles wasn’t so damn _cold_.

It was three days until Thanksgiving, and Stiles had never been any less thankful for anything in his entire life—especially for the guy who called himself Stiles’ best friend. He scowled at Scott, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets. The light of the full moon reflected off of the play equipment around them, throwing some things into relief and others into deep shadow. A cold wind picked up, ruffling Stiles’ hair. He shivered.

“Following you, obviously.” Stiles sniffled, his nose numb. His voice came out nasally. “You promised you would tell me everything three weeks ago—what happened in the Preserve, how Talia found you, why the mountain lion treed you for _three freaking days_!” Stiles’ bellow echoed, bouncing back off of the play structure and the monkey bars. His voice, when it came again, was hushed. “And now my dad is out there in the Preserve tonight because of animal attacks, and Isaac’s dad is dead, and Erica got _mauled_ -”

“She’s going to be fine,” Scott interrupted, trying for soothing.

“You don’t know that!” Stiles spat. He vibrated in place for a moment before biting out, “So tell me what’s going on. _Now_.” He was putting his foot down, damn it.

Scott stared at him for a long moment, big brown puppy eyes blinking at him. His hair was a floppy mess, as it usually was, but in this light, it made him seem impossibly young—twelve instead of sixteen. Stiles’ resolve quivered just a little bit.

Then Scott sighed, side-stepping the monkey bars and heading out of the sand box. “It’s hard… to explain.”

Stiles was quick on his heels, almost braining himself on the play structure in the process. “So start!”

Scott didn’t immediately speak. They walked a little bit away until they were on solid sidewalk instead of shifting sand. Without the playground blocking most of the wind, Stiles started shivering in earnest, gritting his teeth to keep them from chattering. Scott, clad in only a red BHHS t-shirt and thin jeans, seemed oblivious. 

“I’m not supposed to say anything,” Scott said finally, reluctant. His hands were flexing slightly, an unfamiliar gesture on someone who was increasingly unfamiliar. But Scott’s words pinged something in Stiles’ head. 

“Do the Hales know about this?” Stiles asked suspiciously. Scott just sighed, but Stiles jumped on that reasoning with 110% of his enthusiasm. “That has to be it, right? They’re making you stay quiet, right? Cora stares at you, like, all the time-”

“They’re not making me do anything,” Scott interrupted, frowning at him. Clearly uneasy again, he swung his gaze away. Stiles knew all of Scott’s tells, and this wasn’t one of them. But there was definitely something Scott wasn’t saying, and it had something to do with that family. Stiles fumed silently at the idea that Derek freaking Hale might know more about what was going on with Stiles’ best friend than Stiles himself. 

Scott walked away suddenly, to Stiles’ bafflement. He didn’t go far, approaching a pole. Stiles followed him, watching Scott gently peel the blown up corner of a poster back down. Stiles made a small noise when the display was revealed, recognizing it. He leaned against the water fountain next to him, even though the metal burned his fingertips.

He’d put up that very poster months back and never came around to collect. Even though he should have. Even though he meant to. He and Scott spent hours together on that project, stamina failing them but never enthusiasm. It had been hot for April, and that had been such a great source of hope for Stiles. Hypothermia wouldn’t be an issue. Dehydration, starvation, injuries, animals, and bad guys, on the other hand… Stiles sighed.

They grimly stared at it together. The cold turned their breath into fog. The missing kids poster was sun bleached and water damaged—and fragile for them both. Two faces stared back at him, their exact features indistinguishable. Dates were lined up under each picture. Descriptions. Numbers to call. Numbers that belonged to worried sick parents and loved ones. Families and friends who would spend the next holiday season with one less person at their tables.

Had he really forgotten Erik and Gage so quickly? 

“I have to go,” Scott said faintly.

That snapped Stiles out of his head. “What?” He was alarmed, and his voice reflected it. “But- wait! You were gonna-”

Scott looked at him, his expression so grim, Stiles’ mouth slammed shut. “You can find your way home, right?”

“Of course. I’m not the one on foot.” Stiles jerked a thumb at his jeep in the parking lot.

Scott nodded once. “Good.” He had a look on his face—a terrible look. One of resolve and determination, one that Stiles had only seen when Scott was about to do something terrifying, like tell off a senior for bullying a girl or facing down his drunk FBI father when he fell through the door. “Go home, Stiles. Don’t go in the Preserve tonight.” And then, without any warning, he turned around, stalking off into the trees. 

Frozen, Stiles stared after him helplessly, but didn’t follow. He’d done enough chasing tonight. Besides, where was his invitation? When Scott faced down that senior and maneuvered his asshole dad into going to bed, Stiles had been right there every step of the way. Scott expected him to be and Stiles didn’t see any other way of it. It was always Scott and Stiles, against the world.

When had that ended? When did Scott’s world become something Stiles couldn’t enter? 

Blinking back heat, Stiles straightened up, an absent hand pressing against the water fountain. He let out a gusty sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. “What the hell,” he mumbled gruffly to the wind. 

And then, faintly, he heard a reply. _Help me. Help me, please._

Stiles jumped about a foot in the air, pivoting and backing up so fast, he tripped over the low brick wall that made the perimeter of the sandbox. 

No one was there to help him up.

-

April 2013

"We're seniors. Can't we procrastinate just a little?"

Lydia didn't look at Stiles, but it didn't matter. He could already imagine her withering stare. He'd come home from another day at the WWEC, sore and half-delirious, only to find Lydia freaking Martin on his front porch, decked in pink and toting a cute ivory computer bag. 

To be fair, she had cleared this with him back when school was in session. It wasn't her fault he had forgotten. 

They were in Stiles' living room together. Late afternoon darkness edged into the corners of the space, making Stiles feel simultaneously gloomy and cozy. Lydia was perched imperiously on the room's one armchair, laptop sitting on top of her skirt covered knees. Stiles, on the other hand, had draped himself across the couch, only half sitting. The rest of him was sliding ever downward and into a nap he knew Lydia would kill him for.

"Orange is not a good color for you," Lydia told him idly, resting the computer on the coffee table between them. The promising start of a powerpoint blinked back at him. 

Stiles glanced down at his glaringly bright WWEC shirt. He sat up, grumpy, and reached for the laptop. “Oh yeah? What is?”

"Red," she replied after a moment. "Dark red."

Stiles briefly smothered both hands over his face, before scooching forward and typing. "You should have seen me yesterday. I was wearing the blood of my enemies.” 

As he created the intro slide, he smirked, amused by himself. Here he was, almost eighteen, with his biggest girl crush sitting not ten feet away from him. And he was calm. Not spastic. Not overly flirty. Not even desperate. But calm.

Once upon a time, when he was sixteen maybe, he would have been gibbering at the idea of her in his house, in his space, breathing in his same air—her butt grazing where his butt grazed and all that. He was less pathetic now that he was older, he thought, and friendlier with Lydia than his younger self would have ever imagined. Years of similar classes and constantly melding social circles could do that to a person. And Stiles liked being her friend—he did! The Lydia he got to know socially was so much better than the one he’d imagined as a kid—smarter, brighter, funnier, better—and yet…

Although he stopped thinking of himself as the next Mr. Lydia Martin, he still would date her if she gave him half a chance. A quarter of a chance, even. 

He was easy, was what he was saying. 

“What’s our topic again?” Stiles muffled a yawn into his hand, winging up his eyebrows at Lydia when she didn’t respond.

It wasn't a serious question. Far from it. They spent the better half of a month crafting the essay for their shared psychology class. Stiles knew what their freaking topic was, alright? And the worst was done. All they had to do at this point was create a powerpoint from that information, but the amount of fucks he was giving was zero at this point.

It was Spring Break, for crying out loud.

Lydia’s tight, fake smile could peel paint off walls. Even so, she humored him. “ _Schizophrenia._ "

Stiles nodded distractedly. He tossed and turned the word on his mouth, pressing inflection into one syllable before turning it to the next—first to remind himself how to spell the word, and then because it amused him. Then, thoughts jumping ahead, he blurted out candidly, “You know, I hear voices too. How many different voices have to speak to you before it’s considered diagnosable?” 

It was a joke. A bad joke, even for him. He wasn't paying attention to her--wasn't paying attention to anything, really, judging by how many times he spelled his name wrong—so he didn't notice her reaction. He didn't even notice the tension he’d caused or even the silence until it was broken.

“Tread carefully,” she replied at length. There was icy calm in her voice. “I chose this topic for a reason.”

Stiles remembered the choosing of topics, how she gave him a split second to speak before assigning them both to the topic. He’d been sore about it for a week, but knew better than to mention it to her. That soreness emerged now in his tone. “And that is?”

“Because it hits a little close to home, okay!” she snapped, and it made Stiles pull back suddenly, stung. She reacted to that, if to nothing else, packing herself back in a cold clinical box as she commented, “There’s a strong history of schizophrenia in my family. That’s all.” 

The ancient clock up on the mantle was obscenely loud in the silence that followed. If Stiles focused, he could hear the neighbor’s sprinklers going off, spraying a bush of wretched and finicky petunias. He’d fallen in them once and ripped them up with his fingers, so he shifted his focus away from them, chased away by bad memories. The fan in Lydia’s laptop was closer and louder than the clock. If it had been his, this would have prompted him to take a flat bladed screw driver to his laptop and start poking around for leverage—because that was Stiles, in the end. She was smarter. She’d act on a warranty and get it fixed, get it replaced. Stiles was an asshole who tended to break things and flake out halfway while fixing them.

Stiles breathed heavily through his nose, clasping his hands together. He cast his eyes towards Lydia and her stony expression before his gaze went to the scuffed up floor. 

“I wasn’t making fun,” he said firmly. He winced. “Or intending to, anyway.” Then, defensively, he mumbled, “I really hear voices sometimes.” It was a raw admission, all he could dredge up for an apology, and part of him ached at its reveal, phantom fingers scratching out to take back what could never be unsaid. 

Any feeling Lydia had on the topic was hidden behind her eyes. After a beat, though, she titled her head in a regal way that indicated neither approval nor condemnation. She pushed up suddenly, leaving the armchair, her attention elsewhere as she approached a row of pictures on the wall. Stiles assumed—erroneously as it turned out—that this meant the discussion was over, so he continued to set up the powerpoint according to their class rubric, feeling the dull heat of humiliation weigh on him. 

“The brain is a pattern seeking organ,” Lydia said finally, the sentence firmly stated—like fact or gospel. “It doesn’t have to be schizophrenia. _Your_ issue, I mean. It could be something else.” Her back still to him, she shrugged a slim shoulder. “Maybe your brain is incorrectly interpreting noises. Making you think you hear your name instead of, say, the air conditioner turning on.” Stiles wrinkled his nose at that. She didn’t notice. She didn’t care. “Additionally, prolonged periods of stress and fatigue can cause auditory hallucinations, which could make you hear things as well.” There was a long pause. Then, leadingly, she drawled, “Or…” 

“Or?”

Lydia turned to face him with an artful little pivot. The coldness was gone from her face and what was left, Stiles could only describe as being… cheeky. “Or it could be a ghost?” 

Stiles sat back in the couch with a heavy thump. A grin took over his face, delight warming him inside at the thought of someone as purely scientific and logical as Lydia freaking Martin suggesting ghosts just to lighten the mood. “Strangely enough,” he said, beaming at her, “that makes me feel better. Loved even, to know even dead guys are warm for my form.” 

Lydia tipped her nose up at him. “You _would_ want to feel so special,” was all she said in reply, but she was approaching him again, sitting down on the armchair with a little less poise than before. Equilibrium had been restored. 

He watched her fuss with the ends of her skirt, still smiling. “Hey, are you free this Saturday?” 

“Maybe.” Suspicion was thick in her voice. “For what?”

“A date,” Stiles replied. When she just raised an eyebrow at him, he gestured at his body. “Hey, even ghosts want this, right?” 

Lydia sighed, glancing briefly up at the ceiling. Stiles knew rejection was coming, but he wasn’t concerned. Lydia’s putdowns had evolved since the third grade—aka the last time his feelings for her were a secret—from the cruel to the soul crushing to the just plain rude. Now that they were friends, the rejections were more in line with their mutual snarkiness, but no less firm. 

“You _know_ I’m dating Cora…” she said, tone a tad testy. 

Stiles made a face at the reminder. “Bleh. A Hale.” 

“I seem to remember a time when you dated a Hale yourself,” she said with an air of nonchalance. When she saw the look on his face, she rolled her eyes. “Get over it. No one’s giving you points for consistency. Besides, it has to be boring to be the only one drinking Hale Haterade all this time.”

Stiles’ mood soured as an inevitable picture of Derek swam to the front of his thoughts. His image of Derek got a whole new upgrade since their run-in at the WWEC, and that fucker looked good. And healthy. And just fine and dandy, like he hadn’t thought about Stiles nearly half as much as Stiles thought about-

No. He had to nip that thought right in the bud.

“So,” Stiles said forcefully, “schizophrenia.” 

Lydia watched him, her gaze sharp and all knowing. “Nice transition.” 

“Thank you. I’m here all night.” 

“You will be, if you don’t get started. I’m not carrying your dead weight, Stilinski.”

-


	2. Chapter 2

-

December 2010

Stiles hit the dirt hands first. He scrambled forward, palms aching from the drag of gravel, half blinded by the shadows of the night.

_Help me help me help me HELP ME-_

“I’m trying!” Stiles gasped out, half in tears. He got up, limping forward. He pulled himself up and over the fence, dropping from one backyard to the next with all the grace of a bag of rocks. It was the fourth such jump he’d made, and he was aching for it. What little Coach let him do for lacrosse in no way prepared him for chasing after disembodied voices in the darkness.

The fear was stronger tonight, but he wasn’t sure who had it worse, him or the girl. He didn’t even know if he was projecting. For all he knew, she was monotone and he was painting all of his anxiety on her. But he wasn’t willing to take that chance. Hearing her voice again, Stiles dropped to his knees, dewy grass dampening his pajamas. He crawled, ear to the ground, trying to follow the sound. For once, he didn’t worry about snakes or scorpions or rabid squirrels jumping up to bite his face off—he’d see them a mile away tonight. The bleak bright white of the full moon lit everything in his path.

It reflected pretty severely off his dad’s sheriff’s badge too. “What are you doing there, son?”

Stiles stilled, carefully fisting grass in his hands. He rose slightly until he was sitting on his ankles, registering for the first time the red and blue lights streaming around his neighbor’s dark house. His mind went blank. Above him, his dad stood there, flushed and panting, like he’d run through yard after yard to find Stiles. Feeling self-conscious, Stiles looked for that usual expression that graced Stilinski’s face when his delinquent son got caught red handed in something. It was a familiar look to Stiles—concern paired with anger. He knew how to deal with that look—apologies, improved behavior, and keeping his head low for about a month.

This look, he couldn’t even begin understanding. His dad was looking at him like Stiles was a bomb, and only slow and steady movements would ensure the survival of everyone in the potential blast radius. He looked _scared_.

“I’m looking for someone,” Stiles rasped, trying to insert normalcy in the situation. After saying that, he realized, no, that didn’t make any of this look better. His heart pounded in his palms, his knees, and his head.

“And you’re going to find them in this sprinkler system?” The tone was gentle. The words were not. 

Stiles’ gaze swung downward. He smashed a clump of dirt in his fist. He was well aware how ridiculous this looked—thank you, Dad. He glared darkly at—yes—a sprinkler. Even so, some part of him stayed cautious, stayed watchful. She was in the water somehow. He heard her in their walls faintly. It was only when he went outside did he realize he could track her down by her volume. 

And he wasn’t close. But he was getting closer, wasn’t he?

“Well,” the sheriff said thickly, forcing a cheerful tone. “You’re lucky you wore your Pikachu pajamas tonight! Mr. Rayborn recognized you and convinced Mrs. Rayborn not to try out her rifle.” 

Mute, Stiles swung his gaze back to the wall he’d just jumped. Rayborns were three houses back. He looked down at his bright yellow sleep pants—bright and yellow no more. 

When Stiles didn’t respond, he was gently prodded. “They have a lot of guns, you know.” 

Stiles let out a shaky breath. “I don’t care how m-many- I just- I just need to find her. Okay? I need to.” He was babbling, not making his case well. But before he could gather his thoughts, her voice rose again—under him, around him. Stiles shot forward, planting his hands in the ground. “There, you hear her?” Stiles was not-

Stiles was not _hearing things_ , okay? He wasn’t.

“Okay, okay,” his dad said soothing, lifting his hands. He dropped down to his knees himself, settling next to Stiles. Stiles’ eyes bored holes in him the whole time, watching for any kind of reaction.

For three minutes, the Sheriff of Beacon County sat in the grass next to his shivering, dull eyed son on a full moon’s night. He cocked his head to the side, clearly listening for something—anything.

Then, three minutes and forty seconds in— _Hello? Help me. Someone help me, please._

Electrified by this—vindicated and terrorized in the same breath—Stiles scurried closer to his father on his knees. “You hear her?!” After a beat, though, blue eyes swung to Stiles and all hope died. Stiles blinked rapidly, swallowing around an itchy throat. “Tell me. Tell me you hear her.” 

His demands weren’t answered. Stiles’ heart fell. The yard spun around him twice before he dropped his head, sucking in huge gulps of air. His mind was buzzing, his thoughts confused. And beyond all that, he could still hear her voice, demanding and sharp, from the shadows. He teetered on the edge of a panic attack and gritted his teeth.

“Son,” his dad said gently, “you know how you get when you’re stressed. Maybe…” Stiles’ shoulders dropped. “Maybe it’s time to visit Dr. Richards again.”

-

April 2013

“Mr. Hunk of Beautiful is here again!” Heather announced with all the glee of a child at an amusement park.

Stiles responded with the only reply appropriate for that chipper comment: "Ugh."

They made their way through the halls of the WWEC together, heading for the community room to set up for the day. They were tight, these halls, yellow and claustrophobic and apparently not supportive of friendships either, as they kept Heather and Stiles from walking properly side to side. Instead, Heather kept half a step behind him and Stiles, not used to this, kept trying to turn around. He already walked into a doorframe twice, and that was just today’s count.

Heather ignored him. “He’s consulting with Rogers about some plant life he found on his property. Isn’t that weird?” She might as well have cooed _isn’t that dreamy_. The tone was the same. Stiles didn’t blame her. Derek had that effect on people. 

“Double ugh. Let’s avoid them.” Somehow. Stiles didn’t know how it was possible in their tiny little Wildlife and Wilderness Education Center, but, by god, if there was a will, there was certainly a way.

“Hey.” Heather caught his elbow just as they got to the conference room, pulling him to a stop. “Are you okay?”

Stiles looked down at her, but saw nothing but earnest concern on her familiar, friendly face. “I didn’t sleep well last night,” he admitted hoarsely. His schizophrenia project was stirring up all sorts of bad memories for him, the kind of memories that kept him up at night, chest tight and ear pressed to the wall. 

Marin’s voice came from around the corner. “Heather!”

“Coming,” Heather called out, wincing. She grazed a comforting hand over Stiles’ shoulder before going back the way they came, leaving Stiles alone to make the trip to the community room by himself. But the community room wasn’t the problem, was it? No, the real problem were the offices that stood between the conference room and his destination, and a certain lurking Hale.

Stiles took a deep breath and kept walking. Most of the doors were closed, as usual. Some of the replaceable name placards were empty and dusty for it—a testament to the center’s downward spiral of funding. Another sign of the tightened purse strings came in the form of flickering lightbulbs overhead and the dents still present in the walls. The WWEC was a good place to volunteer, but, damn, was it creepy and depressing inside.

Stiles passed by Rogers’ office with much trepidation. The room was empty. It was also unusually dark, despite the glow from above. Stiles peered inside. From the door, it was a clear shot to the back of the room, where Rogers’ desk was. 

Stiles snuck through the door frame, curious but uneasy. Their local plant expert had surprisingly few plants in his office, so the appearance of the potted plants on his desk was surprising for more reasons than one. He approached it, reaching out. He paused, his fingers curled about an inch above a heart-shaped leaf. 

Now Stiles was hardly a plant expert, but he was pretty sure plants weren’t supposed to secrete black fluid… right? 

Some part of him was tempted to touch it—for science, of course. But a bigger part of him looked at that tar-like fluid and didn’t see fun, but rather engine grease that he’d have to scrub and scrub and scrub until it came off. So he stood a little straighter, and then dropped his hand, settling it in his pocket to mirror its twin. 

In a delayed response, he felt pleased at himself for the self-restraint and gave himself a pat on the back. Score one for the maturity column!

That good feeling didn’t last long and his smile slipped. In his left ear, he felt a cold breath, the pressure of a single whispered word—his name.

He’d say later that he froze, but it was more than that, because he was the sort of guy who would be the first one out of the house in a paranormal movie. He had zero tolerance for that shit. So he immediately threw his weight back, but went nowhere. 

He hit resistance instead. That same resistance clamped down on his shoulder, the force of it bending his knees and locking him in place. He broke out in a cold sweat and clawed and squirmed at whatever was behind him. There was nothing to fight. He was pinned like a bug.

“Help!” he yelled out over his shoulder, still twisting. “Help, I need-“

He sucked in a panicked breath. In front of him, the plants started leaking more and more. They seemed to move too, swaying, and the air around them turned to darkness. Dread choking him, he realized that plants were now towering beyond the limits of their mass—and _looking_ at him, somehow. Sizing him up, assessing him, finding him wanting.

 _Reaching_ for him.

Air pressed down on him. He fought harder, wheezing. Gray was swimming around the edges of his vision, and his focus narrowed to one goal. 

He had to get out, had to get out, had to get out- 

He couldn’t pass out. He couldn’t let that thing touch him. 

There was a noise down the hallway. The weight on his shoulders miraculously vanished. Stiles crashed to the floor, smashing his elbow into the hard carpet. Scrambling to his feet, he bolted for the doorway and impacted immediately into a warm fleshy surface that wouldn’t move. Terrified he had traded one resistance for another, Stiles pivoted immediately, half-expecting the plant to have followed him to the door, only to see…

Beige walls. A standard bright—but not too bright—light from above, and the plants, ooze-less with vibrant, if slightly droopy leaves. Water was pooled around the base of each pot and, as he watched incredulously, it poured over the edge of the desk, sinking into the carpet.

Rattled, Stiles blinked rapidly. He was covered in sweat. His sinuses burned and his elbow felt like one massive bruise. A different kind of dread overtook him now, drying out his throat. Trying to save face, he straightened slightly, woozy, but arms circled around him easily, steadying him until there was one office instead of two.

To no one’s surprise, the person who had front row tickets to Stiles losing it was no other than his ex-boyfriend. Of course.

Stiles pushed away from Derek, clearing his throat. “I’m alright,” he said automatically. He avoided looking too close at the doorway, because it was full. Derek wasn’t the only one who came running. Before turning away, he’d seen Marin’s inscrutable stare, Heather’s splotchy panic, and the librarian-y Mr. Rogers’ concerned frown—and those were just the people he recognized.

Humiliation licked through him like a flame, hitting his face first before settling on his shoulders.

“You don’t look alright,” Derek challenged. The crowd behind him was starting to dissipate, grumbling fading with them. Stiles silently willed them to go faster.

“I’m… hungover. It’s fine.” 

Derek was like a dog with a bone. “But I heard you _screaming_ -”

“You heard nothing,” Stiles spat at him, furiously. Fortunately, the only one to see his temper was Derek and Heather, who’d lingered. 

Seeing too much of his failings today in Heather’s paling face, Stiles shook his head once and gritted his teeth. He did a ten count, glancing behind him at the inert plants for courage. Then he lifted his chin and walked past Derek. 

“Sorry for the tangent,” he told Heather. “But we need to get back on schedule.”

Heather blinked several times at him, as if needing to process that. Then she nodded. “Took the words right out of my mouth, newbie,” she joked weakly. Her gaze darted between him and Derek before dropping down to her feet. “Meet you in the community room.” She darted away after that, looking incredibly awkward. 

Stiles found out the reason why when he discovered that Derek was right behind him—and he was so not okay with people being behind him right now. “What?” he hissed with all the venom he had.

Derek flinched. “Stiles. I-” He reached out to Stiles, but stopped just short of his goal, clearly thinking better of it. “I _need_ to know you’re okay.” 

“It’s none of your damn business how I am. _You_ decided that.” Stiles let out a breath that was more shaky than he would have liked. Then he spat, “You want to help me? Then take yourself and your- your- your _eldritch nightmares_ out of here, and leave!” 

As far as parting jibs went, it wasn’t one of his best. Stiles left nevertheless, stalking down the hallway at a quick clip, avoiding everyone’s gaze. He reached the community room within seconds and prepared to hide himself in his sanctuary. But, in a moment of weakness, Stiles looked back down the hallway, curiosity gnawing at his gut.

Derek was still in front of Rogers’ office, directing a frown at the plants he brought in. His mouth was moving faintly. It took Stiles a second to realize that he was repeating Stiles’ words, as if Stiles had said anything of note besides hallucination gibberish. 

Then, as if he could sense Stiles’ gaze, his own shifted until their eyes locked down the length of the hallway.

Ice shot up Stiles’ spine. Stiles fled into the room, slamming it shut behind him.

-

March 2010

Late afternoon sun trickled through the flyers dotting the windows—school dance this, officer election that. All the charming enticements school had to offer teens so they didn’t fuck up their life permanently. 

Stiles pushed Derek back into the dance one, relishing how it turned it into an accordion between the pressure of Derek’s spine and the glass.

“Hey now,” Derek said lazily. “Don’t be rough. I’m delicate.” The grip he had on Stiles’ belt said otherwise. Stiles was leashed here, up close and personal to Derek, and there was absolutely nowhere else Stiles would rather be.

They were in the back hallway of the school between the anatomy and the photography classrooms. It rarely had any traffic, especially not now, right in the middle of lunch period. So Stiles took advantage of it, leaning into Derek’s space in a way he wouldn’t dream of if there were eyes on them.

Stiles dodged all attempts at kissing, though. It was only fair that Derek felt as frustrated as he did.

“No kisses for you,” Stiles said, clamping his hand over Derek’s mouth. “You said you had a surprise.” There was a muffled agreement on Derek’s end. “Dude, telling me your mom gave you the car for the weekend is not a surprise. I have a car. I can take us anywhere. There’s nothing your car can do that Roscoe can’t do better.”

Derek pried Stiles’ hand off, his eyebrow winging up. “Accelerate? Brake? Parallel park?”

“Oh bite me,” Stiles retorted.

Derek, the little shit, did just that, nipping at the inside of Stiles’ wrist. Before Stiles could do more than let out an outraged yelp, Derek flipped them around, bumping Stiles back up against the wall. Stiles’ heart did a giddy little lurch then and his mouth was pulling instantly into a grin he could do nothing to suppress. “I got the car over the weekend for a _reason_ , you brat.” He flicked the end of Stiles’ nose gently when Stiles opened his mouth open to object. “My family is going to Palo Alto to surprise my sister on her birthday. I volunteered to stay behind to house sit.”

The implications of that slammed through all of Stiles’ hastily assembled thoughts on the matter. And, if that wasn’t enough…

“I want to spend all weekend with you,” Derek said with feeling.

Stiles ducked his chin, biting on the inside of his cheek. “You… should have opened with that.”

“And you should have listened,” was the quick retort, all snappiness and zero heat. Stiles squinted at Derek, watching passively as Derek threaded his fingers with Stiles’ own. He had a permanent half-smirk on his face that used to drive Stiles up the wall until he realized Derek wasn’t making fun of him, until he realized that the expression was helpless, until he realized that all that smirk meant was that Derek was… happy. 

This time, when Derek leaned in for a kiss, Stiles didn’t stop him.

They stayed in that hallway for a while. Exchanging body heat, they talked quietly about what they’d do with this unprecedented time out from under the scrutiny of the Hale family. 

Derek had very little true preferences, but still had some ideas. One of them was to take Stiles out to a lake on his property that Derek thought was pretty cool, the same property that was usually off limits when his family was in town. Strangely enough, Stiles “Eternal Trespasser” Stilinski found himself lacking any desire to check out the property, especially not a weird body of water. Lake Charity was a lake that wasn’t on any map. Derek admitted himself that it was more of a pond than anything else (“But it’s a really cool pond,” he insisted time and time again. “There’s a shed in it. It looks like something left over from a flood.”) and Stiles nixed that idea pretty quickly. He wasn’t fond of anything that had to do with nature.

All in all, though, Stiles was pretty excited. A weekend with his boyfriend without worrying about dodging Hales? It was a gift. A joy. A miracle. There was very little that could pop his happy bubble right then.

Then Derek’s head shot up. A look of panic crossed his face and Stiles’ heart instantly dropped. They’d been found. Freaking _Hales_. 

Derek pulled Stiles away from the wall and manhandled him into the photography room. “Stay,” he snapped, shooting Stiles a meaningful look before closing the door behind him. 

Stiles didn’t put up any resistance, stunned and feeling emotional whiplash at this sudden need for him to be hidden. And, of course, Derek didn’t hide in the same room as him either. He might have felt a little less trashy if that had been the case, and a little more like it was just a fun game. As it was, his heart went hollow and his skin chilled quietly. 

After a moment, he crept to the classroom door, looking out the window. Erik Hale and Gage Bernstein passed, arm in arm and lost in their own world. Stiles watched them go, mouth flattening into a thin line.

Gage Bernstein was a senior with springy brown curls, a snub nose, and a smattering of freckles across her cheeks Her eyes were an icy blue. There were a lot of pretty girls, but somehow none of them compared to the way Gage lit up at the sight of Erik. Erik, of course, was a typical Hale male—fit, tall, dark of hair and pale of eyes. He looked a lot like a certain other Hale. He too was a senior, the star player of two or three different sports teams. Stiles didn’t know which ones. He’d lost count.

Together and individually, neither teen was particularly offensive to Stiles. Erik was notoriously kind and Gage notoriously inoffensive, and, together, they were alright. They didn’t shove people’s noses in their relationship, nor was each week a new drama episode in their relationship, unlike the power couple of Stiles’ year, Lydia Martin and Jackson Whittemore. They just… were.

Which didn’t exactly make it fair, how much Stiles hated them. His feelings were not their fault at all.

After a beat, Stiles stepped out of the way of the window, letting them pass. He slid sideways out of the way of the door, knocking his shoulder against the wall. A ball of pain curled up tighter and tighter in his chest as (all too familiar) humiliation burned through him. His breath went shallow and shaky.

But by the time Derek slipped into the room, he was calm—gaze steady and heart resolved. “What are you doing, Derek?” he croaked. All thoughts of a fun weekend turned to ash in his mouth.

Derek didn’t insult him by pretending ignorance. A deep line pressed between his eyebrows with the force of his frown. “I told you. I need to figure something out.”

Stiles blinked, swaying forward and away from the wall. He skirted around Derek, pulling the door back open again. “You’ve been figuring ‘something’ out for months,” he said softly. 

“I told you.” Derek watched him motionlessly, fists as tight as his voice. “It’s complicated.” 

Stiles nodded once, his mouth pulling into a sad smile. He looked into the hallway, struck by a sense of nostalgia and longing for the person he used to be just a few minutes ago—just before he made this choice. He’d been happy then, wasn’t he? Just a boy adoring another boy in the privacy of an empty hallway. 

Derek took a step forward, reaching out to him. “Stiles…” His hushed whisper filled up the room, the inside of his head.

Stiles clenched his eyes shut and shook his head once, backing up. “Let me uncomplicated this for you. We’re-“ He swallowed, opening his eyes. “We’re done.”

Derek stared back at him, expression wide open and hurt—oh so hurt.

Stiles fidgeted, rubbing his hands across his jeans. “This isn’t going to end. This will never-“ He looked away quickly, hating the heat behind his eyes, the burning sensation clawing up his throat. “I thought that, maybe when they graduated, we’d be okay. But then I remembered that Cora’s moving into high school next year, _this_ high school, and…” He shook his head again. “I can’t stand hiding from your family. I can’t- I _don’t_ want to be something that you need to hide.”

Many emotions passed over Derek’s face then—hurt, betrayal, confusion, then horror. “It’s not-” he blurted out forcefully, ineffectually. “It’s not…” His eyes were wide and large and very green. He looked scared. But the wall that was between them, the one that made him change the subject and rush Stiles out of the room and dismiss the unbalanced nature of their relationship, it didn’t come down. It stayed up, ten feet tall and covered in metal spikes.

Stiles felt nauseated. He looked down at his shoes. “Goodbye, Derek.”

He turned sharply into the hallway, avoiding Derek’s eyes. He put as much space between them as fast as he could without running. Even so, Derek’s uncompleted thought followed him out, finished but ambiguous, cloaked in a whisper. 

“It’s not… _you._ ”

Stiles didn’t stop. He looked at his watch. Next period was up. He had a test, one he’d been worrying about. One he’d been studying for. He started running, if only feel something other than… this.

How was he supposed to take a test like this? The bell rang loudly, echoing in his head like the beating of a drum. He thought about heading to class early, sitting amongst his classmates like nothing was wrong, but his face immediately crumpled at the thought. He took a left into the boy’s bathroom, catching himself on the sink. He looked at himself in the mirror, flushed pink and pale at the same time, his eyes swimming and bright.

He took a deep breath, forcing himself to assume a neutral expression. Well, he always wanted a stereotypical high school romance—all parts included, up to and including that hollow place in his chest where everything was touched with gray. It was his fault, really. If you looked at it that way.

By the time he gained the strength to turn on the faucet, his hands were steady and there was no trace of tears on his ashen face.

-

April 2013

“Happy 18th Birthday!” The chorus of screams nearly deafened Stiles as he came in through his front doors. In the midst of congratulatory laughter and self-pats on the back, Stiles smiled and shook and clasped hands with those closest to him, looking pleasantly surprised and pleased as a punch. 

Stiles was good at that now—good at faking expressions and stretching the muscles on his face until they resembled normal people reactions like happiness and appreciation and calm. He couldn’t do it to his dad, of course. His dad always said his eyes gave him away—the polite smile on the first floor never matched the flashing rage on the second. Stiles guessed he was just lucky that no one really looked at him anymore. 

The unwanted partygoers fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. Birthday boy or not, Stiles was able to quickly disappear into the crowd that ambushed him in his own house.

It was a diverse bunch— _someone_ had clearly been reaching when assembling the invite list. There were a few kids from school there—an old lab partner here, a study buddy there. Two of the younger deputies stood in the back, trying not to stand out like neon signs. In front of them, some neighborhood kids weaved in and out of the clumps of people, playing keep away with a balloon and clearly treating his living room as an extension of their play yards. Isaac sat on the seventh step of his stairs, looking broodingly intense and (seemingly) not noticing the hoard of gawking admirers he’d gathered at his feet. Erica and Boyd stood together under a door frame, talking to each other. When they caught his eye, they stared back at him with varying levels of suspicion.

Making a face, Stiles turned into the kitchen. Their usual unassuming table was groaning under the weight of junk food and soda, and, if Stiles strained his hearing, he could faintly hear pop music coming from somewhere in the house. But it was blissfully, freely empty of people for a solid forty seconds, and Stiles took advantage of every single one of them. He let his eyes linger on the splattered confetti and the streamers around the room. Then he gripped the back of a chair and sighed, letting himself experience all the exasperation and annoyance he’d been feeling ever since he noticed that there were six too many cars on his street. 

There was a certain someone conspicuously missing from the group, wasn’t there?

Stiles pushed away from the chair, squinting suspiciously. He stepped out of the kitchen, attention darting from face to face. When that failed to yield who he was looking for, he glanced up at the ceiling. The second floor was an unknown. But with Isaac planted on the steps like a particularly gorgeous brooding gargoyle, Stiles might as well climb the lattice outside to reach his own room. Making a face, Stiles shifted in place. He looked out over the living room again and saw Scott. His best friend was clad in his best casual clothes, leaning up against a wall and talking companionably to the person in front of him. 

From that distance, Stiles could easily see why so many freshmen and sophomores talked about Scott like he was Jackson or Danny. There was a casual confidence in his body that cloaked years of awkwardness and clumsiness. His dark hair was short (or, at least, shorter than it usually was) but it suited him, highlighting the features of his face that hinted at the adult he was rapidly becoming. He looked good, even to Stiles. And he was good— no doubt about it. He was Jackson without the ego and Danny without the snark. And he was _kind_ , unbelievably so, which always made Stiles feel like the biggest asshole in the world when he was mad at Scott—and he was mad at Scott a lot.

As if he could feel Stiles’ gaze, Scott shifted his focus. Stiles made the mistake of making eye contact with him. Rather unfairly, Scott lit up like a Christmas tree, beaming, and he nudged the shoulder of the girl he’d been talking to—Heather, Stiles realized, cheeks rosy and scrubbed clean of the dirt of the day at the WWEC. They both looked happy to see him. Alarmed at this, Stiles ducked his head, waving once before sliding behind a deputy and quickly out the backdoor.

It was there that he found his dad hiding. The sheriff did a guilty jerk when he realized who was at his elbow, instantly putting on his best innocent face. 

Stiles was mad all over again. “I didn’t _want_ a birthday party,” he said, finally giving words to the bubbling resentment that festered in him before he’d even opened his front door. 

“Well, I elected to ignore you,” his dad retorted defensively. It was hardly an apologetic confession. Stiles bristled. His dad, ignoring him, waved a hand—flat, palm up—at the house. “What, this is the 3rd time you would have ignored your birthday? I couldn’t let you do that again, not in your last year of high school, not when-“ 

“Not when what?” 

For the first time, the sheriff hesitated. When he spoke, he spoke carefully, like the wrong words would set Stiles off. “You think I haven’t been watching you? I’m worried about you, Stiles! And I’m not the only one. Your friends are worried about you. Scott is worried. You’re pulling away-” 

“I’ve been pulling away?” Stiles echoed incredulously. His dad winced at his volume. “Really? And since when did Scott have time in his busy schedule to talk to you? Because he sure as hell hasn’t been talking to me!” 

There was a long silence. His dad’s eyebrows remained furrowed, his eyes distant. They flickered once over Stiles’ shoulder. Feeling the hair on the back of his neck rise, Stiles turned, flinching at the sight of their sudden audience. The doorway was full of people, both friends and not friends. Silent judgmental stares came from all three of Scott’s baby ducklings. Heather looked awkward, like she regretted following Stiles outside. And Scott? A wounded puppy had nothing on him.

Right. He should have recognized Scott’s signature touch in the decorations…

Stiles turned back to his dad, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Sorry,” he mumbled—quietly, but with genuine honesty. Regret broke through the selfish displeasure and the ingratitude. That regret would linger. He let out a shaky sigh. “You had good intentions. I just… I have a book to memorize for tomorrow’s last field trip.” He paused. “Enjoy the party.”

He scooted around the people in the doorway, head down. They made room for him silently. His dad didn’t call him back.

The people inside didn’t have a clue what happened. They bought his smile and nodded sympathetically when he said he had to lie down. Without Isaac in the way, Stiles was able to make it upstairs and to his room without much trouble. He turned outside his door, though, at the sound of sandals slapping against wood floors.

“You don’t need to memorize it, Stiles,” Heather said earnestly, like it wasn’t just a piss poor excuse to sulk on his birthday. She closed the distance between them quickly, irritably flicking loose strands of hair out of her face. “Everyone wings it, it will be fine. Just enjoy your party-”

The second she was within arm’s reach, he pulled her into a hug. She made a noise of surprise into his shoulder, grabbing his shirt reflexively. He couldn’t deal with her kindness, not when she’d given him so much of it in the last few months. He didn’t know what he would have done with himself this last break, if not for her. 

When the WWEC needed more volunteers, she hadn’t reached out to him, not really. He came across a directionless plea on her Facebook status, asking for people to help out during their spring break, and Stiles had been the only one to respond. She’d accepted him heartily, though, for all the years of separation between them. He hadn’t been who she expected, but she had been exactly who he needed. A friend. And one he probably didn’t deserve.

Stiles pulled away first, flashing her a dim, thin smile. “Good night, Heather.”

-

April 2010

“I’m starting to hate birthdays,” Stiles said grumpily. Sweltering heat rose to his place in the stands and his head already ached with the squeak-squeak-squeak of rubber soles against a polished floor.

Around him, the crowd jumped up in a cheer after a basketball swished neatly into the net. The air of the gym was vibrant and full of energy, all eyes on the court below. This, Stiles thought glumly, only made him and Scott stand out more—the only two people in the room more interested in each other than the game. 

To his announcement, Scott offered an open Ziploc bag. Stiles crammed his fingers in it greedily. Scott had smuggled him in a piece of cake and Stiles had cackled long and hard at the look of dismay on Scott’s face when he realized math text book plus nummy cake equals smashed piles of crumbs. He got over it quickly though; Scott was a trooper. For the last twenty minutes, they crammed their fingers in the mess, staining their skin blue and sucking off the frosting. 

“I will take you anywhere you want to be,” Scott replied mildly. Someone behind him jumped up excitedly, knocking him forward. As amiable as always, Scott moved with it, barely glancing at the culprit before turning back to Stiles. “Just keep in mind neither us can drive yet, all I have is a bike, and I have asthma and you have no stamina.”

Stiles pursed his lips, squinting up at the ceiling in thought. “So, nowhere, then.” 

Scott made a face before offering the rest of his soda as a consolation prize.

Stiles turned his attention back to the court. His sense of dissatisfaction heightened. Not that there was anything wrong with the game at hand. In fact, if he wasn’t wrong, it was one of the most exciting and interesting ones to date.

Beacon Hills High School was the host of an annual charity basketball game between current students and their school’s alumni. Locals donated to the cause in the name of one team or another, so there was really two competitions going on here—who raised more money and who scored more points. Historically, the teens won the game, but lost the fundraiser. Last year was an upset—alumni winning on both counts—so the teens were out for blood. But it looked like they were fighting an uphill battle. 

Stiles’ attention went for one current student in particular. The lanky, tan boy pushed black hair up and off his sweaty forehead. His jaw was stern, frustrated, adult-like in that smooth, young face.

Stiles’ shoulders slumped. He focused on the rip in his jeans, twisting string between his fingers. He broke up with Derek two weeks ago, and the wound was still smarting. He’d bought the tickets in the first place just to cheer on Derek. Now he was just another face in the crowd. 

One of the alumni made a stunning shot, but Stiles didn't see who it was. Didn't care to either.

Scott noticed his lack of attention and bumped his shoulder into Stiles'. "I thought you loved watching basketball." 

Stiles' response was dull. “Why watch when you can play.”

“You don’t have the hand-eye coordination to dribble.”

Stiles sputtered at him. "Rude!" And true. 

Scott nodded, distracted by the game. He took a deep suck of his inhaler. Stiles watched his hazy eyes, remembering shouts ringing out down the stairs of the McCall house about his overdependence. Scott at the time had been huddled up on the last stair with the biggest, deepest scowl ever seen by man, clearly in an attempt not to cry. No one missed Rafael when he finally left.

Stiles nuzzled Scott’s shoulder affectionately, butting his arm with his nose. Scott just leaned back and wrapped an arm around his shoulder, sympathetic and kind, even when he didn’t understand Stiles’ angst.

“Happy Birthday, bro.”

Soon, it was half-time. This was generally the major fundraising part of the game. They started by introducing the players and alumni. Among others, the alumni team was populated by a few deputies, Robert Hale, Derek's annoyingly handsome dad, and Peter Hale, Derek’s weedy and sharp eyed uncle. 

There were a few skits during half-time, students and alumni playfully poking fun at each other. The comedy and lightheartedness went in one ear and out the other for Stiles. He only had eyes for Derek--and, in his defense, Derek was acting pretty suspicious, pacing as he was and narrowed eyed. It was weird. Usually the chewy charismatic center of any event, Derek was off to the sidelines and looking downright uncomfortable.

His pale pretty eyes were a sharp green in the yellow lighting, and he used them to stare grimly into the stands. Stiles started looking in the stands too. Talia Hale was there, eyes warm and expression open and delighted at the show. Next to her, Cora was texting on her phone. But they were too far up to the focus of Derek's attention. 

It took Stiles a second to realize he was glowering at the alumnus who’d paused and grabbed a water bottle from the sideline. When the man turned around, he was immediately recognized as Peter Hale. And he had four microphones in his hands. This fact alone made the crowd cheer and Stiles sink down low in his seat.

Everyone and their mother knew this game was anyone's game, but it was also clear that the only reason why this was the case was because Hales were on both sides of the team. Erik and Derek represented the school, and did well doing just that. But Peter and Robert were excellent as well. Robert predicted and feinted around his children easily while Peter seemed uniquely able to outrun them both. The next half-time skit played on this tension. It seemed to mostly consist of dropping fundraising statistics in between taunting each other about the game at hand. And there was a lot of taunting.

"-I'm just saying, you and your teammates need to play better in the second half of the game if you’re hoping to win." Peter looked up at the crowd, grinning when the alumni crowd cheered. 

"I think you're counting your chickens before they hatch," Erik interjected, a sly look on his face. "After all, _Laura_ was the MVP of this game last year, not you."

"Ooooh," said the crowd gleefully. Peter looked outraged.

Their performance last year and this year made the Hales the main attraction of this event. Laura had dominated her little brothers effortlessly last year, keeping them on the run until the very last second. Robert didn’t have her energy, but he played hard and fast and scored most of the points so far. The Hale family were the ones who made this game happen, who made this game exciting and worth going to.

“Oh my god, this is so lame,” Scott muttered. “My soul is cringing. So much second hand embarrassment-”

“I know, right?” Stiles replied, eyeing him.

But Scott didn’t suggest they leave. Because who wouldn’t want to watch the most popular people in school, past and present, make fools of themselves in front of a massive crowd? Schadenfreude to the max.

And yet, Stiles wasn’t enjoying himself. Not one bit. So it made even less sense for Stiles to be there, right? Especially on his freaking birthday. He sunk even deeper in his seat. He could have backed out, right? Sure, he would have had to explain the situation to Scott, but would that have been that bad? Stiles hazarded a glance over at his best friend, but Scott was oblivious, heartily booing the alumni Hales with three fourths of the student audience.

"You're up against some stiff competition, boys," Derek's dad said gravely. Of all of them, Robert Hale was the most willing to cheese it up for the crowd. "I got the best person in the world cheering me on." He turned to face the stands then, blowing a kiss up to his wife. Talia stood, doing a little wave and a bow. Everyone around her laughed and cheered her on. 

Erik snorted. "Well, aside from the fact that I'm pretty sure I'm Mom's favorite-" This provoked some loud tittering from the audience "-I also have the best girl in the world in the world rooting for me." Erik beamed and waved at the left hand side of the stands. "Hi, Gage!" 

Stiles craned his neck with the rest of the crowd. Off in the third row, Gage was turning a brilliant red, clearly not expecting to have been called out. Her reaction was drowned out by the whole crowd of girls cheered around her. Some of them turned to her gleefully, while others clapped her shoulders. 

"Oh, the deep sorrow of being alone," Peter hummed softly, looking at the ceiling. He was a picture of sorrow, his microphone clasped under his mouth. 

"I'd date you, baby!" someone screamed out from the ground level. Laughter rang out through the room.

"So. Alone," Peter emphasized through gritted teeth, which made the crowd laugh harder. He shook himself out of his pose and dropped an arm over his youngest nephew's shoulder. "But at least I'm not the only Hale without a partner, right? We can bond about it after I’ve won the game.” 

Derek’s participation in the skit was minimal so far—dry numbers about money raised so far verses money raised last year. His microphone mostly hung by his side, so when Derek's mouth moved faintly, no one heard what he said. 

Well, no one but Peter, that is, and Peter twitched, a genuine surprise reaction breaking through the carefully scripted façade. He swung his full attention to Derek. "What was that?" 

Derek made a face. Then he lifted his microphone to his mouth. "I said ‘speak for yourself.’" Then his eyes locked on Stiles. 

Stiles froze in alarm. All around him the crowd went wild, some laughing at the insult to Peter, others noisy with confusion. What did Derek say? Who was he dating? What this some kind of joke?

The Hales out on the court had the same reaction. Erik and Peter shot each other a bewildered look and Robert looked up at the stands, at his wife, shoulders lifting slightly at her expression.

"Derek, who?" Erik asked, bewildered. His question was pitched low, but was caught by one of the microphones.

"You know him," Derek said, then he tossed the microphone to his father. He turned to the stands and started heading up the stairs--Stiles' stairs. The one he was sitting right next to in front of, oh, like half the school. 

The crowd went wild, cheering raucously. Stiles could think of a thousand other places he’d rather be than right there at that moment, but a big part of him was holding his breath, waiting, anticipating. He broke out into a heavy sweat, heart beat thundering in his ears. Was Derek about to do what Stiles thought he was? Or was Stiles misreading this?

Oh, god. Stiles was definitely misreading this. Had to be. That was the only reasonable explanation. 

"Oh god," Stiles whimpered, gripping Scott's arm. Derek was twenty steps away. Then fifteen. Then ten.

Scott stopped cheering with the rest. "What is it?" 

"Remember when I told you that I loved basketball? The reason for that is coming up here."

Scott’s eyes widened. He put two and two together. “Oh hell,” he said with feeling, eyes reflecting Stiles’ panic.

Stiles shut his eyes, clenching them shut. Heat flushed to his cheeks. He willed himself not to react. _It’s somebody behind me, somebody behind me._ Someone popular. Someone beautiful. A girl like Lydia or a guy like Danny. Not… not…

A confused hush deafened the noise around Stiles. It was contagious, rushing through the crowd as everyone tried to see who was dating Derek Hale. 

A hand cupped Stiles’ white knuckled fist. Stiles’ eyes shot open instantly. Derek was in front of him, in front of the whole school, and when Stiles just stared up at him, his breath knocked out of his lungs, Derek kneeled down on the step next to him so they were at eye level. 

The first thing Stiles saw in his ex was how apologetic and rueful he looked. “Forgive me?” he whispered. His thumb rubbed over the back of Stiles’ hand and his eyes were wide open and sincere.

A sigh escaped out of Stiles like air out of a balloon. His heart went tender. He’d been so bothered by the secrecy Derek insisted of him, even when among family and friends. But here he was, in front of his whole family, in front of the whole school, even. Stiles could barely wrap his mind around the enormity of it all. 

This could have gone so badly for Derek. But he did it anyway because Stiles needed it. Needed the acknowledgement, needed the validation. Stiles still didn’t understand the reasoning behind the secrecy, but he could tell Derek had decided to put Stiles first, and in a massive way. Stiles was embarrassed and anxious and grateful and… speechless because…

Stiles Stilinski didn’t have words for how much he loved Derek Hale.

So he swallowed, trying to beat back some of the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. "No one else went into the stands," he said instead.

"You know me. I like showing off.”

Stiles bit down on a grin. “You’re lucky I sat next to the steps.” 

Derek paused. He cocked his head to the side. His smile was slow and tentative as he deciphered Stiles’ meaning. “I would have climbed over my own mother for you.” 

That did it—the image of a shocked Talia being used as a ladder by her very determined son. Stiles cracked up. Unattractively too. “Pfffftt-” 

But all Derek did was smile warmly. And when Stiles finally caught his breath, he reached out, cupping Stiles’ face with one warm hand. Then, in front of everyone in that packed auditorium, he leaned in and kissed Stiles. 

"Here's a fundraising idea,” Erik announced to the room. “Vote with your money for the power of young love or waste it on singles and boring married people."

"Wow," Robert inserted, voice deep and pleasant, "now your whole school knows exactly which Hale has trash duty from now until the end of time. Good job, Erik." The voyeuristic hoots instantly turned into mean spirited cackling. Such was high school.

When Stiles and Derek parted, Stiles could see that Erik was hanging his head good naturedly back down on the court. Next to him, Peter was watching Stiles with a neutral expression, microphone resting on his shoulder. Robert shot Stiles a little Dad wave before suggesting Derek come down to the court to finish the game. Stiles looked for Talia then. She was smiling broadly, pointing at Stiles and Derek when Cora, foggy eyed, looked up from her phone. Derek went back to the court after promising to take Stiles out on a date after the game—a real proper date in public, this time—and, next to Stiles, Scott kept excitedly thumping his arm, bright eyed and delighted.

There was a warmth inside of Stiles composed of happiness and excitement. He wanted to bottle it. He felt like nothing in the world could ever go wrong again… which was false of course. There were stubbed toes and pop quizzes and disappointing game releases. And they’d fight, probably. 

But he was happy and that was all that mattered. As the game continued, Stiles grinned so widely, his cheeks hurt.

“God, you’re lame too. You’re practically made for each other.”

-

April 2013

Stiles woke up in a puddle of drool, his WWEC manual glued to his face. He peeled it off as memories of his fifteenth birthday mixed with his sixteenth and seventeenth birthdays, miserable nights generally spent alone. He didn’t even want to think about the birthday last night. Ugh. The set up had been fine—Scott had even showed up this year. But Stiles had been such an unbelievable ass-

Stiles flushed with remembered regret and humiliation. He vigorously shook his head. Nope, not thinking about it.

_Help me._

Stiles’ eyes flicked to the wall. That was his only reaction to the disembodied voice. That, and a renewed sense of resignation. Not this again…

Once upon a time, Stiles tried to find a logical reason for the voices he’d been hearing—and, yes, something other than schizophrenia. One thing that he’d been able to conclude at the time was the female voice seemed to rise out of water, and that, when he heard it in the walls, he was actually just hearing it from the pipes that went up to his bathroom. The other thing that he’d been able to conclude was that the voice only came out on the full moon, and the day leading up to it. While neither of these things helped resolve anything, it at least helped him prepare for the day’s onslaught. 

Stiles hadn’t even put his feet on the ground before the whispering began in earnest. He’d tried a number of ways to drown it out, but the best way was just to ignore it, just to let it turn into background noises like the cars he could hear from the freeway and Mrs. Fieldman’s noisy clutch of birds. 

But he just… couldn’t do it today. Something was wrong and he couldn’t put his finger on it. Finally, he walked over to his wall and pressed his ear against it, frowning and straining to hear the actual words. It was then that he figured out what was off. 

In all the years he’d heard her voice, the words and inflection changed very little. Today, though, the whisper lost the question in it. It lost the plea. It was suddenly and obviously a demand. A call for attention.

And then, like a pair of lips had gently pressed against his ears, he heard, _Stiles._

Stiles jerked away from the wall instantly, tripping backwards over his long abandoned backpack. Blood pounded in his ears and his hands fisted. Abruptly, he turned and went to his dresser, getting ready for the day. 

“Come on, Stiles,” he mumbled, shoving his legs in his jeans. “You know how you get when you’re stressed.” His fingers trembled on his shoe laces.

He’d never heard his name before. Not from her.

When he was finished with pulling his WWEC shirt over his head, he fled from his room, taking the stairs two at a time. 

The downstairs was pretty neat, despite the party last night. Stiles looked at a stray abandoned streamer on the wall with a little twist of guilt and bitterness. He turned to go to the kitchen and grab breakfast, but he couldn’t make himself enter the room. The table was covered with a modest pile of presents and a couple of bins of cookies. If that wasn’t enough, the whispers came in stereo in that room. Water, water everywhere, and not a place to think.

In the end, Stiles stepped in the room just long enough to grab the cookies. Then he headed straight for his car, nibbling on three of them at the same time. He turned his radio on full volume, ignoring the shaking fist of his next door neighbor. He blasted music the whole way to work. 

He was twenty minutes early. He parked and walked up to the WWEC building, arms full of cookies for the kids. He stepped through the swinging front door, halfway through a greeting to the volunteer at the front desk when the whispers, so continuous and persistent up until this point, stopped entirely. Everything went silent. 

Stiles took a step back. All he could hear was the gentle buzz of the AC and the birds outside. No voices, no whispers, no questions, no commands. 

Nothing but a buzzing sense of anticipation that scared him worse than anything else.

“Stiles?”

He whipped his head back to the volunteer. She looked concerned. Stiles feigned a smile and approached her counter. “Sorry, Valerie. Lost… my train of thought.”

Valerie smiled knowingly at him then. She was college aged and majoring in computer sciences, or something equally irrelevant to the community service hours she was racking up. Her hair reminded him of Melissa’s—dark, corkscrew-y, and a little poofy. Her eyeliner was a little smudged, but it just made her eyes look darker and wider. He didn’t know enough about makeup to figure out if that was on purpose or what.

“I understand,” she said warmly. “There’s coffee warming up in the break room.”

Stiles tapped three slow beats on the counter. “Actually, are the bathrooms open yet?”

They were. He closed the door of one behind him and stopped in front of a mirror. He’d looked worse, but he’d looked better too. Watching himself swallow visibly, he turned on the faucet at its full strength and focused.

He didn’t hear a single freaking word. Why that didn’t feel like a blessing, he didn’t know.

Sweating, he washed his hands and tried to go on about his business. 

It was the last day of camp. The campers veered from excitement to disappointment and back again. Stiles spends a good chunk of his time on his knees, consoling 5 years olds and trying to get them to be excited about the activities for the day. To cap the week of wilderness and wildlife activities, crafts, and lessons, the whole group of them were heading out into the preserve to see nature in action. While limited exploring was allowed around the WWEC and the part of the preserve that crowded around it, this was the first time many of them were allowed to go in one of the preserve’s actual trails. The attending adults and counselors needed to be more vigilant than ever.

And Stiles was lagging. Noticeably too. Without mentioning the night before, Heather already asked him twice if he was doing alright. Marin took one look at him and told him he could go home. When he protested, she took away the industrial sized first aid kit he’d always been the one to carry, slinging over one of her thin shoulders instead. Even Weird Weedy Rogers suggested that he drink more water and sit down “whenever he felt like it”, and everyone knew he hated people. Wee Thor herself took Stiles’ hand with a hushed look of importance, promising she’d drag him home if he passed out. Stiles didn’t doubt her or her enthusiasm. Alarmed by the good intentioned but still threatening promise of the nature equivalent of a rug burn, Stiles hydrated himself and made sure he had a couple of granola bars, even slapping himself in the face twice to make sure he looked more lively. His energy levels went up, but that sense of impending doom didn’t go down. Wouldn’t go down. Couldn’t go down, maybe. Not until he figured out what was waiting for him just around the corner.

In any case, the concern died down after that, and they took off into the woods. The tour guide was all too enthusiastic about the jaunt. It was a 3 mile roundtrip hike, and the guide was too fast. Even the perkiest of kids were falling behind by the third break point. 

At this particular break point, Stiles paused under a tree, looking out over his campers. There was a body of water in the clearing, a small pond shadowed by overarching trees. A couple of disjointed thoughts about Lake Charity, the lake that wasn’t, floated through Stiles’ mind. He shook his head clean of it. He focused instead on the guide, who was jubilantly extoling the many features of the Preserve to the kids plastered out on the grass. According to him, not only was the area the best place around for wildlife, it was also home to the freshest cleanest water in all of Northern California. 

“So clear you can see right to the bottom,” he swore. He pointed to the pond itself. “Go, look!” The campers grumbled and rolled to their feet, some faster than others. Everyone headed closer to the pond. 

There was a drought in the area, and a severe enough one that the pond wasn’t really even a pond any more. It was more like several large puddles framed by wet and squishy earth. Trying to be a good role model, Stiles kneeled in front of one such puddle. Kids all around him were writing or drawing in their nature journals about what they saw, which was amazing to Stiles. He couldn’t see a damn thing.

Or could he? 

Stiles cocked his head to the side. His focus narrowed on the water and leaned closer. The water was clear—the guide was right about that. And the puddle was deep, about five inches. There wasn’t a single living thing in it, not even a bug, and yet…

There was something at the bottom that made his palms itch and his head throb. He clenched down against a need to flee, to escape, because… because it wouldn’t rational, would it? He’d have to explain. He’d scare somebody, he’d-

 _The brain is a pattern making organ_ , he reminded himself. He stared closer and closer at the water until his nose just brushed the surface. Sweat dripped into the corner of his eyes. It burned. And yet, he still couldn’t look away.

Because he could see a nose. And a forehead, a pair of lips. And a faintest wisp of closed eyes. And he was searching and searching and searching, trying to find the piece that would break the pattern. Because even a normal person saw a man in the moon sometimes. But the more he looked at it, the more his heart pounded, the more he denied it, the more the shape at the bottom of the puddle looked like a face. 

Then the shape’s eyes opened.


	3. Chapter 3

September 2010

Stiles stumbled into the dark and empty locker room. Light filtered in oddly, fluorescent and all too bright, but sparse. The flush of victory from the game wasn’t enough to keep him from eyeing the cold shadows suspiciously. He adjusted his jersey nervously, humming the theme from _Halloween_. 

There was a tension there, the familiar and the foreboding clashing. But a second later, it all but vanished when he saw a flash of red. He lurched towards the back of the room, heading towards it.

“Scott!”

In a gray tinged corner, Scott stood with his face against the wall. He turned his head slightly when Stiles came up behind him. 

“Hey, dude. Something weird’s going on, right?” Stiles started scouring the floor for Scott’s gym bag. “I mean, you dominated on the field today. I don’t get it.” 

He had half a joke about pigs flying formed in his head when he found what he was looking for. He crouched and pawed at it thoughtlessly before pausing and seeing what his fingers could not compute. The whole top of the bag was shredded, like it had gone through a machine with many blades. Stiles lifted pieces of it at a time, deeply confused. 

A prank from the opposing team? What bad form. These bags were expensive as heck.

Stiles shook his head, annoyed. He dug deeper in the bag. “Where’s your inhaler?” If those fuckers took Scott’s asthma meds, Stiles was going to start beating heads in—starting with their sexist coach who kept berating exhausted teenagers for “playing like little girls”. 

“I don’t need it.” There was something odd about the way he was looking at Stiles, like Scott wasn’t entirely there. 

Making a face at him, Stiles scooped up Scott’s bag and stood. He paused, thinking about Scott’s aggro behavior during tryouts, his increasingly short temper these days. Plus his amazing performance during the game! If he wasn’t hallucinating, Scott flipped over an opposing lacrosse player. _Twice_

“Dude, are you… are you on something? Are you high?”

In the half-darkness of the empty room, all Stiles could see was the curve of a faint smile on that familiar face. “High off of life?” 

“Don’t pull that one on me, mister.” Stiles sobered. “Did you get bitten by a radioactive spider or something? You weren’t that good last year.” 

Scott shrugged nonchalantly. “I… took a summer course.” 

Stiles’ face scrunched up as he tried to recall the last summer. “When?” They’d been together for most of it. 

There was a long pause. “Those two weeks you were in San Francisco?” 

Ah, that was right. He was gone for a while. Stiles shrugged, dismissing it. “Okay, fine, but two weeks don’t end a lifetime of bad habits. Or cure your lungs, for that matter.” Stiles dropped Scott’s bag on the nearest bench, approaching Scott’s locker. 

Scott stopped him, forearm barring his access. “I’m fine.” 

Stiles stared at him incredulously. “You? You’re not fine. You _think_ you’re fine, but if I know you, you’re about to have an asthma attack.” Stiles had a 67% success rate with these things. There was a graph and everything.

But Scott wouldn’t budge. “I’m _fine_.” 

“You can’t be. You’re pushing yourself too much.” And then, unable to avoid the pink elephant in the room, he blurted out, “I mean, just a week ago, you were treed by a freaking mountain lion for three days. You can’t be al-” 

A low and dangerous noise ripped out of Scott’s chest. “I said I’m fine!” Then a hand smacked over Stile’s sternum, pushing him away. 

Stiles staggered back under the force of it, nearly tripping over a bench. He clung to the corner of it, frozen. He’d been shoved harder and over less. Even so, he was in shock. Something primal in him stood up straight, keeping still for fear of being noticed. He stared at the ground for the longest time.

When he finally dared to look up, Scott was feet and feet away from him, his hand clamped over his eyes. Something about the defeated set of his head made Stiles unclench and let go of the bench.

“Scott-“ 

Then, with no warning whatsoever, he was yanked back by his elbow by an iron grip. Cora Hale scowled up at him.

“You’re done,” she told them. Then she dragged Stiles out of the locker room. Scott didn’t stop her. 

Two minutes later, he was staring, jaw dropped, at the closed door of the locker room. The rest of the players were still celebrating on the field, and their MVP was alone in the locker room with a freshman girl, possibly having a nervous breakdown. And Stiles? Stiles was standing like a scolded child in the hall outside.

Something was rotten in Beacon Hills. And the Hales were in on it. Stiles didn’t know why he was surprised. If Derek was capable of coldly dumping him out of the blue despite all evidence that their relationship was awesome and amazing, then the Hales were capable of pretty much anything evil. 

Yeah. Evil. 

Eeeevil. Maybe there was something in the water.

Whatever it was, though, the Hales were clearly in on it. And ever since Scott was treed by a mountain lion on their property, the Hales tried to keep him under their thumb and silent. But joke was on them! It was only a matter of time before Scott spilled the beans. They were best friends. They never kept anything from each other.

It was only a matter of time. 

-

April 2013

Stiles was in the nurse’s office. He sat on a raised table by himself, clutching an icepack to his head. His WWEC shirt was sopping wet still, despite the heat of the day. He glanced up at the clock on the wall, frowning faintly. And the camp was over in five, four, three, two, one…

Well. So much for a productive day. 

The nurse came back in then, smiling at him brightly. “How are you feeling?”

Stiles paused, cycling through and discarding answers. “Sore,” he decided on. 

She nodded once, expression sobering. “Let me check again for a concussion…”

Stiles obediently sat through the tests, focusing on the distant throbbing in his head. It was a Friday, so when she dismissed him, she told him to take it easy and have a great weekend. No concussion, no head trauma, no nothing, apparently. Not that that stopped his dad from picking him up. Stiles didn’t complain, though. He just gingerly climbed into the cruiser idling in front of the WWEC. 

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hey yourself.”

They took off down the road and back to town. Stiles rolled down the window and stuck his head out, enjoying the heat from the sun on his chilled skin. Every gust of wind held the promise of summer. If he strained, he could even pick up the faint whiff of sunscreen from conscientious pedestrians. 

They’d only been on Main Street for two minutes before his dad broke the silence. “So, let me get this straight.” He raised both of his eyebrows at Stiles. “You headbutted a puddle?” 

Stiles squinted at him suspiciously. When his dad kept his poker face straight, he replied cautiously, saying, “I think I fell asleep mid observation.” 

But that was a lie. His heart rate picked up. He swallowed, trying not to remember the feeling of fingers curling in his bright orange collar, dragged him down. 

“Then you must have dropped immediately into a nightmare,” his dad said, voice lowering, sobering. “They said you started screaming.” 

“I also puked,” Stiles replied crankily. “Do you want to talk about that?” He rubbed at the throbbing in his temples before looking back out the window. He blinked, turning in his seat and clutching the door at the sight of a curly haired teenager in a white dress. She held his gaze when they passed, eyes as blue as the ocean. She was a striking girl with freckles over cheeks, and the sight of her terrified Stiles.

“Pull over,” Stiles said faintly.

“What?” 

“Pull over!” 

His dad did just that, and abruptly too. Gravel flew as tires sliced through the dirt. Once the cruiser stopped, Stiles yanked off his seat belt. He scrambled out the door, nerves raw and a name clawing up his throat.

But Gage Bernstein was no longer there. 

Stiles stood still, trembling and cold, uncomprehending—or rather, comprehending slowly, in hitches and fits.

On the other side of the car, his dad was also out. He was very very quiet. Stiles remembered crawling around in the dirt, following a voice, and dreaded his dad’s reaction. He turned slowly, meeting his dad’s gaze with a wince. He had a hard time deciphering the look on his father’s face. 

“It’s the last day of spring break,” his dad commented. He crossed his arms over the top of his car. “Want to go somewhere?” There was a thread of desperation in his voice, but it was gone as quickly as Stiles registered it.

Stiles’ response was slow, his mind stuck on the fact that his dad was distinctly ignoring the crap that just happened. “You have work.”

“And I can play hooky for a day better than you. What do you say?” When Stiles just frowned at his shoes, his dad sighed. “If that’s not appealing, well… Lydia is having a party.” 

Stiles’ head shot up. “Lydia. Lydia _Martin_.”

His dad looked relieved. “Yup.”

“A party?” 

His dad was clearly and obnoxiously pleased with himself. “That’s right. And I got you an invite.”

“How did you manage that?”

“Perks of being a sheriff, I suppose.”

Stiles frowned at him. “Dad, you do know what kids my age do at parties, right?”

“Hey, I’m not that old.” His dad sobered. “I want you to… not be in your own head for a while. I don’t care how you do it… as long as you obey the confines of the law, of course.” When Stiles ducked his head, warmed by the sentiment but not knowing what to say, his dad smiled gently. 

But there was more worry in those blue eyes than Stiles was strictly comfortable with. “I love you, you know that right?”

-

November 2010

The last month had been rough in Scott-And-Stiles Land. There had been a lot of snapping and arguing and radio silence—sometimes from Scott’s camp, but mostly from Stiles’. And it hurt, because as much as Stiles hated Scott sometimes, he loved him too. Every inch apart, every unkind word, every dismissal hurt like an open wound, especially when he was the one inflicting them.

But things were better this week. Scott’s distant stare had faded and he was looking like the kid Stiles knew—happy and confident and secure in his own skin.

And not so fucking _afraid_ anymore. And that, of all things, had crawled under Stiles’ skin the most, knowing Scott was terrified and wasn’t sharing the hows and whys of it with his best friend. Stiles had tried to pull him aside, tried to tell him that, whatever it was, Stiles would have his back, Stiles would go to _war_ for him. But instead of cheering Scott up, this announcement provoked a panic attack. Stiles hadn’t brought it up since.

But that didn’t matter anymore, did it? Everything was back to normal. Scott was even eating with him again, instead of with Isaac, Boyd, Cora, or Erica Reyes, who was freshly out of the hospital and making a face like she was trying to glare at her own forehead.

“Wait- Jackson’s leaving?” Stiles sputtered, jabbing a spork in Scott’s direction. “Why?”

“I’m not sure,” Scott replied, mouth flattening briefly before he took a big bite of the mystery sandwich of the day.

“Weird.” Stiles cycled through some of his favorite reasons why Jackson could be leaving, but ultimately discarded them all. As emotionally satisfying as it was to think Jackson had been expelled for being a mega douche, it wasn’t realistic. Even if Jackson had been stalking him for a while, the creep, his lawyer father would not allow the Whittemore name to be tainted with such accusations. “Hey, weren’t you hanging around him when the library was trashed?” 

“They’re thinking the opposing lacrosse team did it,” Scott said quickly, even though that wasn’t what he asked. What he was implying, sure. But not what he asked.

Stiles narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Scott. Scott’s response was a typical Scott response—an innocent, sunshine-y smile. “Why are you so…” 

Scott swallowed his most recent bite. “So what?”

Stiles hesitated. Two weeks ago, he’d followed and confronted Scott under the light of the full moon. He’d seemed so pained then, so small and lost in that park. “Everything’s back to normal,” he said instead. It came out more skeptically than he meant it to.

“Everything is fine now,” Scott said, agreeing. “No one needs to worry about anything.”

Stiles squinted at him. “Overly optimistic, aren’t you?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Once you get over one hurdle, the next is right there to trip you up.” Stiles turned his full attention to his salad—uneaten but riddled with spork holes. “There’s never not conflict, you know? There’s never not problems to solve, there’s never not a crisis on the horizon. Nothing is ever fine.” 

“I guess you’re right,” Scott said faintly. 

“Well, I’m not wrong. I mean, there’s always another Jackson, right?” Stiles looked up then to share in the joke.

But Scott’s face was ashen. “Jackson,” he said quietly. “Right.” 

Stiles had the faint idea that they’d been having two different conversations. He thought about pressing it but, at the very last second, decided against it. He let Scott shrug off the worry. He let Scott force a smile at him and change the subject.

He tried to force Scott’s hand in the past. He tried to stalk him. He tried to get others to fess up, but all that did was cause fights between them. The secrets still hanging between them were agonizing. This was the longest time Scott had ever kept a secret from him, and once, Scott broke Stiles’ limited edition Mr. Spock doll. Scott kept that secret for weeks and promptly burst into tears when Stiles gently brought it up. The guilt had been too much for him—and he hadn’t been a child then. This was only, like, two years ago.

So, no. Stiles didn’t press Scott to explain his reaction. Stiles didn’t make Scott spill the beans. And the reason for that is because, after months of trying to force the issue, Stiles was finally confident Scott would tell him eventually. All he had to do was give him time.

Scott was Stiles’ best friend. He was willing to wait.

-

April 2013

Stiles slid in front of a mirror, combing his hair back with his fingers. When it looked just right—tousled, like he didn’t care, but neat, like he actually did—he yanked his red hoodie off the back of his computer chair and raced down the stairs two at a time.

He disappeared into the kitchen and straight into their snack cupboard, grabbing small handfuls of food and shoving them in his mouth—just enough to keep his stomach from grumbling obviously. He ducked out of the cupboard, cheeks bulging like a squirrel as he chewed. He’d almost gotten out the front door, car keys in hand, when he suddenly reversed and went back to the calendar in the kitchen. 

He munched down, eyes narrowing. Then he swallowed, tracing the red circle around the current date with the tip of his finger. After a beat, he flicked to the next month—May—and the month after that. And the month after that too.

His dad had every full moon circled in red.

He’d noticed it before, of course, but it always slipped his mind. Besides, his dad’s calendars were rarely full of dates worth observing. December may have had Christmas, but most of the things clogging up his dad’s calendar month were reminders about bills and appointments and meetings. _Boring_ stuff.

The red day, though. There was nothing written there, like even his ever swamped dad thought that the meaning was glaringly obvious and didn’t need an explanation.

Then again, maybe it was. Everyone gets a little wild on the full moon, right? Stiles tipped his head up, eyes thinning suspiciously at the still quiet walls. 

Not today. Cheered by that thought, he headed out, swinging his keys between his fingers. He got in the jeep sitting outside. Five minutes later, he was well on his way to Lydia’s house.

She didn’t live that far away. Maybe in the richer neighborhood, sure. But still not all that far away. Like his own house—like many houses in Beacon Hills—Lydia’s house went right up against the Preserve. The only thing that kept her house from being eaten up by it were a couple of ambitious walls that stood as fences towards the back. Nature mocked these walls, staining them green and white, painting them with thick trails of moss and ivy that went straight up—and well over, if he recalled correctly. In that respect, Stiles’ house was much like Lydia’s—a temporary but well loved shelter whose presence was tolerated by the Preserve.

For now.

As he pulled into the street, though, his hackles rose. The richness of the people on this street was more evident in how high their noses were in the air than anything else. Nevertheless, he felt distinctly out of place.

He parked between a shiny Mazda and a Tesla, wondering how his dad scored him an invite. Jittery, he smoothed his hair down again and walked to the front door, amusing himself with day dreams of his father pulling teens over and doing his best “sheriff of Mayberry” bullying routine until he got what he wanted.

Two picture perfect douchebags with popped collars lounged near the front door. They eyed him, but didn’t offer up any resistance. He was let through the wide open front door without any trouble and was left blinking in the low light of Lydia’s front room.

There were a hell of a lot of people here. Strangers too. Stiles was hard pressed to find anyone he knew from school. He found himself recognizing more people from Heather’s school instead, people he’d met briefly in his elementary years before arbitrary lines on a map sent them in three different directions.

He couldn’t find any of Lydia’s friends either—her popular entourage or even her real set of friends. The people she actually liked, like Danny or Malia or Liam or the new girl Kira, were completely missing. He didn’t see Scott’s group either, and Lydia was pretty fond of Scott nowadays. He couldn’t even find Cora, Lydia’s girlfriend, and that made his hackles rise.

Mulling over this, Stiles skirted around a few people, avoiding eye contact when he could. He’d went willingly, alright, more excited about this and the promise of Lydia with her hair down than his own birthday bash, but he was under no illusions. His dad had twisted somebody’s arm, and, if Stiles played his cards right, that someone would not get the chance to pin him down and avenge their street cred. But that was the best he could hope for.

No, wait, it wasn’t. At best, Stiles would be allowed to stand in the corner and be left alone. At worst, some combined forces of jock and popular people would bodily pick him up and chuck him out of the house. Head first. And they’d probably pants him too because, why not.

So Stiles wasn’t hoping for much here. He was completely unprepared for what happened next. 

Stiles had gotten three mouthfuls of illicit beer—one point in the favor that maybe his dad didn’t know too much about this party—when Lydia herself suddenly approached him, making a beeline for him in intimidating, towering high heels. 

Stiles braced himself against the wall, ready to defend his presence there to the hostess and, if that didn’t work, brandish his USB with the finished presentation—he’d come prepared. “Ly-“ 

Lydia got two fistfuls of his collar and yanked him down to her level, planting a hard kiss on his slackened mouth. The move incited jibes and amused shouts all over—more voyeuristic jeering than the justified confusion that would have came if more BHHS students were in attendance. 

When she released him, he rocked back and stood there on weak knees. He stared down at her, eyes wide.

Lydia smelled faintly of alcohol under her perfume. But her hair was curling around her pale shoulders and green dress straps. She was beautiful in the low light of the room, and she was looking at _Stiles_ with intent. Stiles didn’t know whether to flee or to drop to his knees in front of her.

Lydia tucked into him, fingers curled in the front of his hoodie. “Still drinking that Hale haterade?” She asked breathlessly. Stiles nodded mutely. Something passed over her face then—brittle and tender. It was masked quickly by hard resolve. “Good. So am I.” 

Ignoring the rest of her guests, she dragged him towards her father’s study by the strings of his hoodie, much to the delight of those watching. Stiles himself was still trying to figure out how he felt about this. Confusion reigned supreme, but just under it, hope swelled like a balloon, making his heart race and his breath catch and his mouth go dry.

He was easy for her. This should have come as a shock to no one. 

She released him briefly to grab two red cups full of alcohol, then crowded him until he’d stumbled through the opening himself. She closed the door behind them. The sound of the party were muffled by the door.

Instead of offering him one of the cups, Lydia downed one, then the other in an impressive show of fortitude. Then she stalked towards Stiles with an intimidating gait that had him immediately backing up and knocking things off her father’s desk.

“Woah, woah, woah,” he said quickly, hands raising defensively between them.

She paused, head cocking to the side slightly. Her mouth was parted prettily and her eyebrows were scrunched together in confusion. Stiles swallowed harshly, glancing at the brighter and revealing lamps of the study. That shiny look in her eyes wasn’t just really flattering lighting after all. 

When she didn’t come any closer, he sat on the corner of the desk. "Lydia," he said gently. "Do you want to talk?" She squinted at him, but he didn’t falter.

Lydia came out pretty strongly as lesbian last year and made it clear to anyone who wanted to assign labels that Jackson was an exception. Only when she said “exception”, her poisonous tone revealed that the word she really wanted to say was “mistake”. Stiles didn’t blame her. Jackson had dumped her quite publicly a few months before he left, calling her “useless” and “dead weight”. While he seemed to regret that later, she never forgave and she never forgot.

But the lesbian thing seemed to come out of the left field, especially for Stiles who didn’t know her all that well socially. But she seemed better for it—happier, more confident, and less likely to pander to the egos of people around her. She wore fewer masks. She smiled more too, like the whole experience had been freeing for her.

And then she started dating again—girls, this time. And she’d never been happier.

So, as hopeful as Stiles was, this whole situation? It didn’t make any freaking sense.

Lydia scowled at him. “There's nothing to talk about.” 

“Well, what about Cora?” Stiles clasped his hands in his lap and raised his eyebrows. 

“Don’t patronize me,” Lydia snapped, but it was almost as an afterthought. Her forehead relaxed for a moment and her eyes went distant, beyond Stiles. “Cora is Cora. Which used to be okay until it wasn’t.” She shook her head clean of that and started focusing on him again. “Enough with the twenty questions. I thought you wanted me.”

“Oh, I do. I very much do.”

“So…” She edged a little closer to him. She dipped her head, letting her hair fall in front of her shoulders. When she looked up, her lips were pulled into a secretive little smile. It was a very, very attractive look on her. 

“So…” Stiles parroted back dumbly. He was quickly losing his train of thought. When she hooked a playful thumb in the corner of his front pocket, it derailed into a fiery crash. “I love you,” he blurted out.

Lydia blinked up at him, green eyes wide. “I know,” she said, but the certainty of that response was at war with the sudden hesitation that flickered over her face. She looked down and to the left, nodding once. “I always did think we’d end up dating at least once. Back in middle school, anyway.” 

He cupped her face then, motionless until her eyes were on him. Time froze. Stroking a loose strand of hair from her cheek, he leaned down slowly, focus on her parted lips.

Then the study door swung open behind her. Lydia jerked away from him so fast, his palms burned. Frustrated, he called out, “Wow, bad timing, Scott.”

Scott wasn’t alone. Erica stood next to him with a Cheshire grin, ripped jeans, and a low slung tank top. She looked good, as usual, but a dangerous sort of good, like fireworks and tall waves. She paired well with Scott, who had long since upgraded from his weekly Pokemon shirt to well fitted jeans, muscle accentuating shirts, and a faded gray bomber jacket.

Behind them, Boyd’s deep voice rose over the sound of music. The party was over and everyone was getting kicked out. There was a lot of shouts and complaints to this announcement, but Boyd merely repeated the order. 

“-and hop to it,” Isaac was saying snidely. “I don’t have the best of patience today, and I’d hate to have to key your car.” 

Boyd tweaked Isaac’s scarf in response to the threat, but it did make the party goers leave a little faster.

“What the hell?” Stiles muttered to himself. 

“Wow.” Lydia lifted one finger at Scott, her eyebrows needling together. There was a long pause, and, in it, Stiles’ heart dropped, suspicions confirmed. She teetered slightly and then snapped. “I didn’t invite you.”

Scott looked genuinely apologetic at this. Erica, not so much.

“That’s your problem,” she said, edging between Scott and Lydia. “Not mine.” In one smooth move, Erica set her shoulder in Lydia’s stomach and stood, wrapping a secure arm around Lydia’s waist. 

Absurdly, this did not provoke protests from Lydia’s end. Instead, she gleefully laughed at this new development, proving without a doubt the level of her inebriation. And, if that wasn’t enough, she slapped Erica’s ass with an ungraceful hoot. 

Erica looked like she’d bitten into a lemon. “The things I do for Cora.” She walked out with Lydia in tow.

This galvanized Stiles like nothing else. He darted forward, only to be blocked by Scott’s forearm. He felt betrayed. “What the hell are you doing? _Lydia!_ ” All he could hear was her giggling as Erica took her up the stairs and to her room. 

“I’m doing what needs to be done,” Scott explained, forehead creasing. “For everyone involved, including you.” 

“What?” Stiles snapped, focus still on Erica, carrying Lydia off.

“I’m not feeling so good.”

“Woah, you better not- fuck you, Martin!”

“I’m not sure how much you know about what’s going on.” Scott pushed Stiles deeper into the study, his expression wide and earnest. “But she just got out of a fight with Cora and-” 

“So?” Stiles blustered, angry. “People break up. That’s a fact of life. She’s single." And ready to mingle, Stiles wanted to say flippantly, but something in him was trembling, fragile, confused. His eyes flicked up to where the stairs would have been, if there wasn’t a wall in the way. He’d been spinning fantasies of this very moment for ages, and no variation of it involved a Lydia reeking of alcohol and puking on the top step of her richy-rich stairs.

Scott sighed, looking resigned. “Trust me, she’s not single.” 

“She’s a grown woman, she can make her own decisions.” 

Scott showed the first hints of being annoyed then. “First of all, she’s been 18 for maybe a handful of months? Second, being an adult doesn’t mean you don’t need help avoiding mistakes. Third, did you or did you not see her _drinking_ tonight?” 

As if to highlight that last point, a miserable sounding noise echoed down the stairs and floated into the study. Yeah, Stiles noticed the drinking—too much, too fast, too deliberate, like she was trying to forget something. And, yeah, he noticed she wasn’t in the right headspace—too tense, too sad, too manic, like she was putting on a show. And any other day, he’d be right there with Scott, ready to figure out what was wrong and how it could be fixed.

But this wasn’t any other day. This was the day he’d been dragged into a puddle by a hallucination. This was the day that the voice in his head stopped talking to him. And, most of all, this was the day that the girl he loved since third grade finally kissed him, only to start puking mere moments later.

All he could focus on was one word, one implication. And his poor self-esteem effortlessly blew it out of proportion.

“Mistake?” Stiles whispered, voice wobbly.

"Yes," Scott said, puzzled. "A mistake."

That hurt. That ached straight down to his very soul. Heat built up behind Stiles’ eyes. “Great. So you think I’m a _mistake_.” 

"That's not what I meant," Scott said, back pedaling. Stiles stared at him through watering eyes, waiting for a better explanation, but it didn’t come. “It’s. Well, it’s complicated-” 

The soft edged pain in his chest turned sharp, double edged, and Stiles hissed venomously, “You know, I _hate_ people who talk down to me like that, who act like I can’t wrap my head around whatever little crisis has their pretty head locked up in a bind.” 

“Stiles-” 

He ignored Scott. The anger was better than the pain. Stiles ranted, “I’m not a mistake, I’m not an idiot, I’m not some… some _loser_ taking advantage of a rebound, I’m-” He froze, feeling as if he’d been sucker punched in the stomach. But the truth was right there, clear as day. “You know what? I’m not your friend either.” 

Blood rushed through him suddenly, flaring up in his cheeks. He wasn't sure if it was a good rush or a bad one. All he knew was he felt strong and weak at the same time. Scott looked horrified.

Good.

Stiles pushed past him, heading out the door. 

Scott caught his elbow at the last minute. “Stiles!” 

Stiles shook off his grip before whipping around. He got in Scott's face. “I waited for you,” he whispered. To his horror, his voice cracked. “I waited so long. I tried so hard to be patient. I tried so hard to ignore you stringing me along and I tried so hard to back off when you made it clear you wanted less of me in your life…” Stiles rocked his head back and forth, stunned and hurt all over again. “You and I are done. Have a great life without me.” 

Scott didn’t say a word. He just stood there as if he was paralyzed. He didn’t stop Stiles, so Stiles slammed his way out of the room, stalking towards the front door. 

He grabbed a bottle of vodka on the way out. Might as well follow Lydia’s example to the end.

-

May 2010

Derek Hale was an orange rimmed silhouette when Stiles finally found him. It was getting late—way past the time either of them should be home—but there Derek was, sitting on the bleachers overlooking the lacrosse field. The sun set behind him, turning the green of his long sleeved shirt black. He hadn’t changed his clothes in three days, but no one was willing to press that point.

Rubbing his buzz cut, Stiles made his way up to the last bench. “Hey,” he said tentatively, drawing out the word. When Derek didn’t respond, not even looking in Stiles’ direction, he forced a little bit of cheer in his voice. “Been looking for you.” Stiles cautiously sat down next to Derek, looking out over the empty field.

They sat in silence for a while. Stiles kicked his feet back and forth, tugging at his collar. He didn’t think of the word ‘impotent’ a lot—and when he did, it was about guys and their dicks—but he couldn’t help but think it now. He was the poster child for the other definition—powerless, helpless, ineffective.

Utterly and completely impotent, he was. Yup. That was Stiles Stilinski, alright. Though, to be fair, he was hardly the only one, was he?

Erik and Gage had been missing for a week, and the whole school was panicking. Any hopes of young lovers eloping were quickly dashed in the first couple of days. It was much more likely that they’d gotten kidnapped or lost in the Preserve. His dad and the rest of the sheriff station paired up with the rangers and were taking long shifts out there every day, trying to find even one shred of a clue.

They’d found Gage’s blood the other day, smeared across a low wall, and the finding sent the whole investigation into a tailspin, and the town into anticipatory grief. Everyone knew the couple, and they knew that, if anyone wanted at Gage, they would have to go through Erik first. Even if Gage was alive, the chances that Erik was too were… slim. At best.

Stiles could only imagine the heartbreak Derek was feeling.

Stiles glanced over at him. Derek’s pale eyes were red rimmed and blank. Stubble had broken through the skin of his jaw, black and coarse and unlike the smooth cheeks he usually shot for. Now that Stiles was closer, he could see that the collar of Derek’s shirt was torn as well, like he’d wrenched away from someone trying to hold him still. 

Derek had a white knuckled grip on his knees, but as Stiles watched him, they loosened slowly, deliberately, like Derek was all too aware of his gaze, even without eye contact.

“This is a mistake,” Derek rasped finally. A flicker of emotion passed over his face, but, before Stiles could identify it, it was gone. 

“What is?” Stiles asked quietly. Internally, his head was abuzz with noise, thoughts tripping ahead, filling in the blanks, spinning away to ten different conclusions.

That all came to a stop with Derek’s answer.

“You.” 

Stiles flinched and pulled back, speechless.

“I’m starting to realize I liked you better as a friend,” Derek continued. 

Stiles’ world narrowed. He blinked rapidly. Fourteen different responses sprung to mind at once, but none of them were him, none of them expressed what he was feeling. So, instead, he whispered, “What did I do?” 

He didn’t doubt Derek’s words—not then, not at that moment. He’d always expected them at some point, but… why now?

Stiles wasn’t clingy. Stiles went to events when Derek asked him. He didn’t follow Derek around like a lost puppy. He was a good boyfriend, wasn’t he? Didn’t he keep track of all the right dates? What did he do wrong?

Was this really even happening? It couldn’t be. This was just some kind of prank, wasn’t it?

Derek’s loose hands clasped into fists on his knees, but when he spoke, his voice was calm and placid. And reasonable. So reasonable. “So we messed around a little. No big deal.” 

Stiles snorted, numbed. They hadn’t done anything that even constituted ‘messing around’—Stiles was rearing to go but Derek was all too aware of Stiles’ age. Was that it? Was it Stiles’ personality? Was it his age?

“…I don’t understand.” The sentence came out soft, mournful. Stiles licked his lips, tasting salt.

Derek flinched. “I’m sorry I misled you.” Despite coming out in the form of an apology, there was anger in those words, and a heavy weight. “Just buzz off now, okay?” 

For the longest time, Stiles didn’t move. He sat there, feet glued to the stands, feeling a crisp spring wind cool his cheeks. Then he shot up with sudden energy, surprising even himself. He took the steps down three at a time, needing to get away.

Once down on the grass, he broke the cardinal rule of horror games and break ups alike—he looked back.

Derek was still as stunning as he had been ten minutes ago. But it was darker now, the sun dipping lower on the horizon. He’d moved only slightly, clasping his hands together under his chin. He was staring out at the lacrosse field, over and beyond Stiles’ head, looking calm as anything.

And that tore at Stiles, to see how little he cared. And what hurt more was how senseless this was, how out of the blue.

He could see the lines that led up to the first break up—the silences, the mystery, the hiding, the resentment. But this? This, he couldn’t understand. This, he couldn’t wrap his head around.

And he hated that the most. An explanation would never come.

-

April 2013

“Happy Birthday to me,” Stiles sung quietly to himself. “Happy Birthday to m-“ he hiccupped grossly, tasting a little of what had gone down.

Ew. He glared at the vodka, blaming it for everything, including global warming. “You’re eeeevil,” he whispered to it.

It was only a quarter full now. His brain was comfortably sloshing around in a vat of alcohol. It kindly muffled all the noise and feeling and regrets ricocheting around in his head. However, it didn’t quite manage to purge Stiles’ overwhelming sense that he was pretty damn pathetic.

Breaking up with his best friend hurt worse than breaking up with his ex or bombing his last chance with his biggest girl crush. Wasn’t that weird? At least he knew Derek was an ass. With Scott (and Lydia too), Stiles had a bad feeling he was the ass. A giant ass even.

It just figured that he couldn’t hold onto any sense of righteousness while drunk. “Why you do me wrong?” Stiles whined at the bottle. The bottle, thankfully, didn’t reply back. Stiles was spooked enough already.

He’d sat down ten or twenty minutes ago, just to catch his breath. But when the howling started up, he swayed to his feet, cursing, self-preservation cutting through the vodka in his veins.

Fucking nature. Boo. 

How could humans evolve to feel so shitty and yet still have hearts that kept beating? He was blaming nature for that one too.

Moments later, he walked straight into a tree.

That sobered him up a little bit. He blinked rapidly, slapping his cheeks a few times. The preserve around him was lit up with the light of the full moon. That said, there were shadows everywhere. Stiles was really fortunate he hadn’t broken an ankle or something. As he looked around, it slowly occurred to him what a crappy idea it had been to take a left and head to the preserve instead of taking that right to his jeep.

It was ten thirty at night, and he was alone and cold and drunk in a forest full of hungry mountain lions, shifty raccoons, and rabid squirrels.

Dammit, he was dumb. 

Stiles winced and got back up on his feet. He rubbed his palms on his jeans, aware suddenly that he was losing feeling in the tips of his nose and fingers. He pulled his hood over his head, hating the obstruction to his peripheral vision but needing the trapped warmth. 

He walked more cautiously then, feeling eyes on him and remembering the howling. There had been no wolves in this area for decades, but _something_ out there had howled. He walked at a quick clip to where he thought the road was, nothing in his mind but the thought of getting home. 

Thirty minutes later, he called it quits his feet stinging with blisters. Feeling dizzy and quite a bit more sober, he found a root that felt a little less painful and put his back to a tree. He sucked in several needed breaths, watching the exhales turn into visible clouds of fog. Slowly growing anxiety hung around in the background like an unwanted visitor he just couldn’t ditch.

“ _Stiles._ ”

Stiles froze, fingers clutching on his hoodie. _The brain is a pattern making organ_ , he reminded himself. He clenched his eyes shut, clamping his hands over his ears.

Not today. Not today. She wasn’t supposed to talk to him today. 

The voice was muffled and soft and female. “ _Stiles._ ” There was a pause. “ _Stiles?_ ”

At the slight change in tone, Stiles slowly lowered his hands. His heart rattled away in his chest and his anxiety ratcheted up, but all he could think of was Occam’s Razor. Wasn’t it simpler to assume this wasn’t in his head? It wasn’t like no one lived out here in the woods. Maybe a Hale had fallen into a hole and needed a hand? 

When he thought of some poor person sitting in a hole, scared and hurt and alone because his paranoid drunk mind told him to stay still, he couldn’t take it. So he got up, leaving the nearly empty bottle behind, and called out. “Hello?” 

There was no response. Biting his lip, Stiles stumbled forward, making his way there in inches. Using his phone as a flashlight, he cautiously ducked through a pair of trees, stopping just short of a shallow pond. There was no one in sight.

The pond—lake, maybe—was a striking sight. In the middle of the body of water squatted a massive tree, sliced through the middle and made as flat as a table. There was actually some sort of shack at the base of the tree, some sort of cellar built into the roots that rose well above the water line. Blackened branches rose up and out of the water everywhere, ominous and menacing.

The sense of being watched intensified.

Something about the ambiance of it reminded Stiles of German folktales of stupid children wandering into a witch’s front porch, only to get eaten. 

Then he blinked and the whole pond changed, like a distorted after image. Black ooze dripped from the tree and into the obsidian water. It bubbled, thick and tar-like. Bulbous veins pulsed through the sunken structure and into the branches that crisscrossed the whole area. 

And all Stiles could think was about how he’d seen this already in a smaller scale—just once on a desk in the WWEC a few days before.

Air stirred over his neck. A whisper came up from behind him. “ _Stiles_.” 

“What the fu-“ Stiles didn’t finish the word before he bolted. 

He didn’t get far. He hit the ground when something curled around his leg and _yanked_. His cell phone dropped out of his hand. He fought viciously, kicking and tearing and yelling, resisting the steady pulls towards the surface of the strange tainted lake. He fought for his life. 

But he’d gotten away once. She was not letting him get away again. Soon enough, water came up and over his head, and he was dragged under.

And at 11:15 on April 16th, 2013, Stiles Stilinski drowned in Lake Charity.

-

April 2010

With a pleased grunt, Stiles stapled in the last of his missing posters in the wooden pole outside of a kid’s playground. He backed off to admire his work. On this one pole, he’d posted one flyer in each of the cardinal directions—wasteful, maybe, but effective. No matter which way a person approached this pole, they had no choice but to look at the face of Gage Bernstein and Erik Hale.

It was almost May, the month of senior celebration and mischief, and their very own senior power couple had been announced as missing just yesterday. Stiles tried to text his boyfriend to find out what was going on, but he got a whole lot of nothing from that front. Not that he didn’t understand the guy’s situation or anything like that. He just wished…

He just wished he could help Derek, and it was really hard to do that when he was nowhere to be found.

So he was putting up missing posters with his best friend instead. Speaking of which… 

Stiles trotted away from the playground and the pole, jogging down to the last place he’d seen Scott. He rounded the corner onto a new street. Immediately, he saw Scotty was facing off with Goliath, and with nowhere near David’s confidence. In fact, he was backpedaling rapidly, hands raised defensively. It was smart of him, really. This guy’s biceps were bigger than Scott’s head, and he had _two_.

“-I’m recruiting,” Jolly Green was rumbling, his frown intense. “And I sense potential in you.” Scott looked terrorized by this pitch.

“Oh, you must be mistaken!” Stiles called out, hurrying over to them. Big Foot turned, scowling, clearly unimpressed with the skinny teenager that butted into the conversation. “He’s just a sophomore. Wee little guy, really.”

“Very wee,” Scott replied, clearly petrified. He was clutching his stapler like a weapon. Stiles edged over until he was slightly in front of Scott. He regretted soon enough.

“I don’t. Make. Mistakes.” Was he… was he growling at Stiles? Oh wow. Dude was menacing for sure. 

“Okay then,” Stiles said, voice slightly high. He clapped his hands together. “What’s your sport? Football?” 

“I’m not a football kind of guy,” Scott bleated mournfully. Stiles could have kicked him. He loved Scott like a brother, but he was becoming less and less okay with being Scott’s shield by the second, and all Paul Bunyan did was glare at him and make some noises in his chest.

“You’ll bulk up. Besides, I’m not really giving you a choice.” 

Red flags flew, warning signals were launched, and, if this guy stepped any closer to them, the internal siren ringing in Stiles’ head would rapidly become external in the form of an ear piercing shriek. Stiles was only fifteen years old! He was _not_ ready to die, okay? 

“Far be it from me to intervene,” a chilly voice interrupted, “but haven’t you caused enough trouble here?” 

Talia Hale strode into the park front the street. She was so much shorter than Conan the Barbarian was, but her face was thunderous. There was something glowering and dangerous about her, like she’d like nothing better than to break Andre into seven pieces. 

Stiles and Scott didn’t hesitate for a second—they ducked behind her immediately. But not before Stiles fired off, “Besides, guy, no means no.” 

Talia turned slightly, eyes on them. She looked them over, as if searching for injuries. It was such a mom thing to do. She even briefly cupped Scott’s cheek. It must have been comforting to him because, for whatever reason, Scott’s low wheezes—usually a precursor to an asthma attack—evened out. He thought, for a second, that there was black ink on her hand, but, when she pulled it away, he saw that he was mistaken.

“Talia, we need more allies,” the guy bit out quickly, as if sensing he only had a small window of time to speak. “Gerard has shown his hand. We severely underestimated him. Kali has shipped out her crew and Deucalion’s not thinking clearly and wants to turn him, for crying out loud. You and I are the only ones operating with a full deck of cards. We. Need. People.” He thumped his wide chest with the heel of his palm. “I put my best guys forward. I’m the one who lost-”

“Do not speak of _loss_ to me,” Talia retorted, turning to him finally. Her voice was low and cold. “You will not replace your loss by stealing from others, Ennis.” She tipped her chin up, her words venomous. “Leave this town. If I see you again, I will not be so kind.”

This “Ennis” hesitated before trying again. “Gerard-“

“-is no longer any concern of yours,” she interrupted. “ _Leave_.”

Ennis looked… well, _frustrated_. In that moment, to Stiles, he became more than some guy who cornered his best friend and sprung. In that moment, Stiles could see something young and immature about this Ennis, like he was a bully who threw around his weight because he knew no other way to socialize. And Stiles didn’t always understand everyone but, that? That, he could understand. A little.

After a beat, Ennis inclined his head to Talia and walked off without a word. As Stiles watched him go, the gravity of the situation fell on him like a ton of bricks. Stiles dropped back down to zero empathy within seconds. If Talia hadn’t shown up…

“Thanks, Mrs. Hale,” Scott said avidly, thinking what he was thinking. 

“Yeah, thanks,” Stiles said distractedly, glowering after the guy. He turned to her. “What was that about?” And what the hell was that guy recruiting for?

Stiles paused in his line of questioning, getting a good look at her. In her anger, she was vibrant and strong. Without it, exhaustion and misery radiated from every inch of her. There were bags under her blood shot eyes and lines on her face that he’d never seen before. Her hair was lank and her face was pale under her freckles. 

“Boring adult stuff,” she said with a thin smile. She tried to brighten it and failed. “What are you two up to? Having fun?” At the sight of missing posters still in Scott’s hand, Talia froze. “Oh,” she said very faintly. 

Stiles didn’t know what to say. He had half an impulse just to hide Scott from view. She had a lot of pain going on in her life right now. She hardly needed the reminder, did she? But Stiles had no idea what to do. He was usually hurting people’s feelings, not fixing them. 

“Hey,” Scott said gently. “Are you okay?”

Talia looked down at the ground at that, a complicated expression passing over her face. She looked haunted and drained, as if she had aged ten years in the last twenty-four hours. 

“My dad’s on it,” Stiles blurted out, rushing in to reassure her. “Everyone in town has at least _two_ of these.”

“We’re doing phone calls too,” Scott informed, a hint of excitement bleeding through. “There’s a social media campaign all fired up as well. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr…” Scott trailed off, noticing what Stiles noticed.

The more they mentioned the search efforts, the more pained Talia looked. She licked her lips. “I didn’t think-“ She shook her head once, unable to finish the sentence.

Scott reached out, grasping her forearm. “Mrs. Hale,” he said gravely. “We’re going to find them. I promise.”

Her head shot up at that, her face ashen. Her eyes widened, and then they filled with tears. She pulled Scott to her and then Stiles, hugging them both. 

“Thank you, boys,” she whispered. But there wasn’t a shred of relief in her voice. Nor hope. Nor gratitude. All he could hear was grief.

Stiles hugged her back. But even as he appreciated her nice smelling perfume and the comforting, overwhelming warmth of her, Stiles couldn’t help but wonder why she was acting like they were already dead. 

-

April 2013

Stiles broke the surface of Lake Charity with a gasp. He flailed, sending murky water everywhere as he franticly paddled away from the tree. Within seconds, his feet hit shifting sand, then he was trudging as fast as he could manage. He was stone cold sober and terrified.

“How did I get here?” he hissed to himself. “How did I-“

He slipped and fell up the bank and found his phone. He grabbed at it with shaking hands, swearing harshly at the low bars. He kept crawling until he was well away from the water, until he could stop feeling the phantom itch of branches yanking him under.

It was 3am. Four hours had passed after he’d gone under, so long that the mud had dried on his phone. His mind spun off into panicked denial. This had to be a nightmare. Right?

The sullen throbbing noise from all the joints and skin he had said otherwise.

“What the fuck,” he wheezed, voice going high pitched. “What the fu-” Suddenly dizzy, he tipped forward into the roots of the closest tree, collapsing on the ground. His head buzzed with white noise. He felt like he’d had blood drawn. He was so. Freaking. Tired.

When the world stopped spinning, Stiles set his fingers into the mud, pushing himself up with all his strength. He’d crawl to the road if he had to.

But about two feet away, a wolf stared back at him steadily, head low and eyes wide. The howling, Stiles remembered, and froze. 

It just. Fucking. Figured. Didn’t it.

Stiles swallowed past the terror. “N-nice doggy.” He slid back until he was on his knees in the mud. 

The wolf never stopped looking at him, so Stiles did the same. Later, he’d kick himself, reading up on wolf behavior and dominance displays, but in the moment, he was distracted. There was something familiar about the eyes, something… not entirely threatening.

Everything about those long legs and that powerful body screamed wolf, but those eyes... Those were the eyes of a freaking _puppy_. 

“Puppy?” he whispered quietly. 

The wolf blinked then. Then he settled back on his haunches and sneezed, looking away. When Stiles just stared, mystified, the wolf stood and did something complicated with his paws, slapping them on the ground twice. He bent his torso low to the ground, his thick tail wagging once hopefully.

Relief flooded Stiles like a wave. He shook his head. “Oh, puppy, I am so not in the position to play right now.” Stiles got to his feet slowly, feeling the burns of small abrasions everywhere.

The wolf barked sharply at him, but that tail continued to wave, dog-like in its enthusiasm.

Swallowing harshly, Stiles brushed mud and dirt off his clothes. He looked over his shoulder and back at the water. It looked normal now, like whatever had rose from it had finally settled back wherever it came. It was clearly dormant—ominous in the low light, but no longer some Cthulhu hell pit.

Stiles was already starting to doubt his memories. Was he dragged, or did he fall in? Was it really 11 when he entered the lake or did he just lose track of time? If he couldn’t trust his own mind…

...then what did he have?

Nothing, clearly. He’d burnt too many bridges. He didn’t even have-

Stiles let out a shaky sob, heat rising to his numb face and his aching eyes. He didn’t even have _Scott._

The wolf let out a low whine, scratching at his shoe with a long clawed paw. It was rare to find a wild animal so in tune with human emotions. This was probably some sort of wolf-hybrid, then. Or a very illegal human raised wolf.

Stiles blinked rapidly, rubbing his wrist over his eyes. He forced a smile. “It’s okay, puppy, it’s okay.” Stiles cleared his throat and started limping away, heading for the road. Or where he thought the road was, anyway.

The wolf followed him. The age of the furry guy was no longer in question, as he constantly circled Stiles companionably, yipping and hopping at his shoes. Drained by the day, Stiles was distantly entertained by the canine’s antics. 

What a dumb animal, Stiles thought.

But he had vastly underestimated the creature’s intelligence.

By the time Stiles realized he was being herded, it was already four o’clock. It was dark and cold and all he could see of the wolf was odd red reflections off the back of his eyes. It was then that he realized that there was something more purposeful about the wolf’s intentions, more sharp about the wolf’s focus. 

Then he was tripping over asphalt and into a dark street—Lydia’s neighborhood! He could see his car off in the distance, alone and by itself under a flickering street lamp. 

When he turned, the wolf was gone.

-

???  
Tears. Sobbing. Great gasping noises reached his ears.

Stiles opened his eyes. He was underwater. A face danced above him in the ripples, almost familiar. He thought, for a second, that it was Derek, but the eyes are wrong. The face belonged to another boy and, despite his situation, Stiles could do nothing but stare up at him, captivated.

The other boy’s mouth moved. The other boy’s face twisted in anguish. The other boy spoke.

“Please, please, _please_.” Hands gripped Stiles’ arms harder, holding down. He was drowning and not drowning at the same time. He had no need for breath—which was weird, right? But why it was, he couldn’t put his finger on it. Everything was hazy. Too hazy. 

Blood floated above him in faint lazy spirals, but it was the wrong color—black instead of red. Stiles couldn’t feel a thing.

The boy above him was shaking, trembling. “Take her. Make her better. Make her _alive._ Please!”

In the haze of it all, all Stiles could think was how much he hoped the boy wouldn’t get his wish. The price would be too much to pay.

-

April 2013

It was Saturday and Stiles was cleaning. _Spring_ cleaning, if anyone asked. In reality, though, it was more like stress cleaning, rapid, spastic movements towards a common goal that was less about cleanliness and more about shutting out the noise in his head.

He wasn’t doing so well on that front so far. Despite his best efforts, his mind kept spinning through various explanations for what happened last night. 

He kept coming back to the theme of toxic waste with hallucinogenic chemical fumes. Not every business in Beacon Hills was green and ready to save the environment. Maybe he’d stumbled on their dumping site?

He couldn’t quite calculate the likelihood of that, though. He kept running into a wall, a thought about _toxic waste in his mouth_ , and the resulting visceral reaction—nausea and a full body tremble—made his mind jump away from that train of thought out of self-preservation. _Eeew._

So he cleaned. He dusted and he wiped down and he got rid of trash. He threw away a stack of old papers from middle school and found—finally!—his missing Captain America sock, wedged between the back corner of his dresser and the wall. He pulled out their ancient vacuum and got it going, lifting and nudging things around his room to get under and around. He got into a rhythm, started feeling good about what he was doing.

Then he ran smack dab into his backpack. Uncomprehending, Stiles backed up, finally looking at the room as a whole.

Every single thing he’d picked up and moved was floating in the air, spinning idly under the pressure of the AC. 

-

???  
The familiar halls of BHHS raced past him in a blur. The full moon light peeked in through the windows, lighting up the floor but little else. He raced down the corridor as fast and as quietly as he could, terror choking him, but each footfall was still tellingly loud to the ears of the thing that followed. 

He rapidly turned a corner and realized he had miscalculated. He tried, but couldn’t stop fast enough. His flat shoes skidded across the slick floor. He winced, bracing for impact and slammed his shoulder into the trophy case. 

The cover broke and Stiles was vaulted in a world of fiery hot pain. He cried out as the glass cut into him, the broken blades cutting and cutting and-

He pulled free, flinging drops of his own blood to the floor. Arm clutched to his chest, he flew down the hallway, knowing he was doomed. 

But there! At the end of the hallway. People, teenagers, kids his age. Relief and hope surged through him and he raced towards that open door. “Hey!” he called out.

The teens spooked at the sound of him. They clumped together in a loose, wary formation.

Then, to Stiles’ horror, one stepped forward and grabbed the handle of the door.

“No no no!” he shouted. “ _No!_ ” He ran faster to no avail, colliding with the door as they shut it, holding it closed. He slammed his palms against the door, screaming at them. 

Through the small square window on the door, Stiles could see that the teens were no longer wary. They looked, if anything, anticipatory. They hooted and hollered over Stiles’ screaming. Only a few words made it out through the cacophony.

“Don’t be a coward!” 

“Come on, kid-”

“-it’s tradition!” 

Stiles stopped fighting with the door. He backed away from it, his mind racing.

A howl rose from behind him, echoing powerfully off metal lockers and high ceilings. Stiles turned slowly, heart in his throat.

At the end of the hallways, something massive and furred rounded a corner. Red eyes were set deep in a broad, shadowy face. As Stiles watched, the thing rose and stood on two legs like a man. 

On the counselor’s door opposite from him, Stiles saw, for the briefest second, a reflection of himself—short curly hair and terrified blue eyes.

The teens cheered raucously all of a sudden. The door rattled ominously where they held it. They were no friends of his. They were on the monster’s side.

Stiles took off and started running down the other hallway.


	4. Chapter 4

April 2013

Stiles went back to school after Spring Break ended. He won’t lie—it was with a bit of a swagger. Even after he tripped over a parking bumper on his way out of his Jeep. Nope, he just shook it off, randomly clapped hands with a perturbed freshman he didn’t know, and trotted up to the front of the school with a big, easy grin.

And why wouldn’t he feel happy, right? He was, like, Peter Parker now. And he was narcissistically enjoying every minute of it. 

His newfound powers seemed limited to telekinesis—no wallcrawling from him, which was a bit of a bummer. But still… super powers. Amazing. _He_ was amazing. 

He promised himself he would only use his awesome super powers in the service of good. Pissing off bullies was good right? Right.

How quickly his day went downhill.

The second he stepped through the door, a wall of sound nearly crippled him. It was deafening, more pressure than sound, more blunt edged needles digging into his eardrums than anything he could actually… understand.

Gagging, he stumbled towards the nearest bathroom, knocking over two juniors on the way there. He hit a stall so hard with his shoulder, it shook. Then he was blindly groping his way forward, positioning himself over a toilet as his stomach bucked and rolled. He felt like he was about to vomit everything he’d ever eaten ever. Breaking out into a cold sweat, Stiles clamped his hands over his mouth, trying to breathe evenly and get his body back under his control, and it was too. God. Damn. Loud.

Air whistled noisily through his nose, grounding him, giving him something to focus on other than the blunt force trauma trying to make its way into Stiles’ very soul. Once he was able to, he sagged to the left, leaning against the wobbly wall, continuing to clamp his hands over his mouth and stare bleakly down at the dingy toilet.

Okay, so maybe he played up his enthusiasm a little bit. Telekinesis was scary too. He freaked out—screamed, even. Brandished a pillow at hypothetical freak ghosts while making threats to the air he had no ability to enforce. And that was before he learned that the weirdness wasn’t external, it was internal.

The freak in the room was _him_. 

But he had a whole weekend to adjust to moving things. He had hours and hours of time practicing how to move things and—more importantly—how to _not_ move things. He’d had whole days to reinvent his narrative about his new powers. But this… 

…What the hell was this? It was still so loud, even in here, like a massive crowd of continuously muttering people was standing just outside his stall door. 

Stiles took a deep breath, doing several ten counts before pulling away from the toilet and out of the stall. He glanced up at himself in the mirrors. His face was white as a sheet. The only flush of color was under his nose where a couple of drops of blood had gathered. He was strangely grateful for that, that outside confirmation of his internal agony.

With shaking hands, he splashed his cheeks with cold water. The nausea was dying—the pounding too. If he wasn’t mistaken, color was coming back in his face in pink splotches. He met his eyes in the mirror.

“Freaking telepathy,” he whispered. “What the hell?” 

The warning bell rang. This shifted the tone of the thoughts he was picking up and provoked Stiles into groaning. Sameness, he could get used to. Change, though…

Wincing, Stiles picked up his bag where he’d dropped it on the floor. He scooted out of the bathroom, expecting to be hit by that wall of sound again. He was, but it was easier to deal with now.

He hurried to class. His teacher forgave his lateness when she saw his face and the way he sort of fell in his chair and stared pathetically up at her. Her expression didn’t change—it rarely did—but he could her thoughts and they swirled with sympathy. Stiles looked quickly down at his table, realizing that he’d pulled out of her mind as immediately as he slipped in.

Crap, crap, crap… How the hell was he supposed to learn how to not…

His thoughts trailed off. He stared at the rounded, dry curves of his knuckles, his slightly uneven nails. He curled his hand in to a fist, tightening it to feel the bite. He heard nothing in his head.

If he focused on himself instead of other people, that cacophony of noise died down to mere whispers. Okay.

_Okay._ He could do this! He could block people out. All he needed to do was focus.

Easier said than done. By the time he left that class and moved onto the next, he had a permanent wince on his face. The hallway was a fucking nightmare.

Later, in the quiet of his bedroom, Stiles would reflect on how fascinating this all was. Guilt inducing, since it all was a horrible invasion of privacy, but also still fascinating. He was getting a firsthand account of how people’s thoughts worked, and the reality of it completely destroyed all of his expectations. Even the smartest people in the room had minds that ran on streams of consciousness—no correct grammar, no political correctness, no attention to sentence structure at all. One thought bleds into another seamlessly, and all thoughts were periodically broken by images, both real and unreal, before picking up with words again like nothing ever happened.

People’s minds were like water, he decided, rippling with every stimulus, reflecting it, altering, changing it. Discarding it. 

At school, though, Stiles didn’t hypothesize or indulge in conjecture. Instead, he just focused on trying to keep the voices in his head quieter.

His second class threw him for a loop when Isaac Lahey entered the room. 

Stiles didn’t like Isaac, and Isaac didn’t like him. Even so, their mutual dislike wasn’t the topic of today’s discussion. No, the real problem was Isaac had to be a fucking special little snowflake, didn’t he? What an asshole.

…Okay. So maybe it wasn’t Isaac’s fault. Stiles could be fair too! It’s just, everyone’s thoughts and concerns were different, but they were pretty much the same too, mostly in rhythm and pitch and sound. It was this exact rhythm and sameness that was helping Stiles keep out of their heads and into his own.

Isaac, though. Isaac stood out in a room without saying a damn thing. There was something else in his head besides thoughts, ambient noise threading through mild disgruntlement about the smell and heat of the room in from of him.

Stiles couldn’t explain it right away, what he was hearing. He likened it to wind whistling through a hole in a forgotten cave—low and long and mournful with no apparent source. Whatever it was, though, it was secondary. Isaac’s thoughts, still grouchy but slowly shifting, settled somewhere above it, just as varied as anyone else. 

Realizing Isaac was staring right back at him, thoughts darkening with suspicion and a surprisingly anxious dose of paranoia, Stiles turned to the front. He chewed on the end of his pencil, mulling over this new piece of evidence. The only conclusion that came to mind was swift and, quite frankly, rude.

He has a hole in his head, Stiles decided, smirking. Which made sense. Why else would Isaac dislike him so much? His mean amusement died when he concerned what that meant. What if Stiles was hearing a medical condition? Like a tumor or an incipient aneurysm? Stiles peeked back at Isaac, brow furrowing.

Oh god. He couldn’t take this kind of stress. Stiles snapped his attention back to his binder, ripping out his homework for the class. 

The room filled up quickly and, unable to stop himself, Stiles cast his focus over the group—not really probing or digging, but rather getting the feel for them all. It seemed like he could tune them out a little bit better if he knew what their minds felt like, and he would need that to get through this class.

Because of this, he found out Isaac wasn’t a special snowflake. There were three more people in the room with the same hole in their thoughts:

Erica Reyes. Vernon Boyd. And Scott McCall. 

It wasn’t like Stiles didn’t know Erica had epilepsy. How could he not? She had almost weekly seizures until she swapped meds a few years back and got a personality transplant. And Boyd? The dude barely talked and that silence could hide any number of pre-existing aliments.

But Scott? Stiles’ Scotty? Klaxons were going off in Stiles’ head. His heart started racing in his chest as he immediately jumped to the worst conclusion. Not Scott, not-

Something weird happened then, cutting through the panic like a hot knife through butter.

Scott was last in the room, and he tucked in quietly in the back of the class, disturbing no one. But all three of his friends turned to him slightly, eyes going back to him. And all those different noises in those different heads in all those different pitches stopped for a moment. Then they rose together, softly, quietly, but still in perfect peaceful harmony.

It was the weirdest thing he’d ever experienced, and a Lovecraftian lake dragged him under water for four hours. But after a minute it made him feel better too. Since when do tumors communicate to each other?

A sense of purpose surged within him. He got caught twice researching harmonizing brainwaves on his phone under his table, but he didn’t care that he’d had to hang around after class to get it back. Research made the voices go quiet, which was, hands down, the most important thing he learned in school that day.

Next period was lunch. Stiles skirted around his peers and classmates while picking up his meal. He remembered Cora glaring a hole in his face from the other side of the cafeteria. He knocked her open milk off her tray, feeling petty. He was out of the door and outside before the carton hit the ground. But that was his strongest memory of lunch. The rest of it was a haze of research.

Lydia was avoiding him. That, he noticed too. He wasn’t sure how they were supposed to start dating if she kept being somewhere else, but… despite everything, that was secondary. It always had been. 

After lunch, he sat down next to Danny Mahealani in their shared science class. Danny’s thoughts were beautiful and uncomplicated, concerns about a future assignment drifting in confusion and suspicion about why Stiles Stilinski today, of all days, would want to sit next to him. Cheating was considered and discarded as a potential motivation, but being annoying was not.

Rude. 

Harris charged in through the door, stalking up to the front desk. They still had seven minutes before the class officially started. Someone in administration made the poor choice of having the guy teach every. Freaking. Science class. In reality, the man shouldn’t have even been around students, given how much he hated them. The feeling was mutual. Harris was mildly rude on a good day, actively soul destroying on a bad one.

Stiles skimmed over Harris’ aggressive thoughts and ranting with a frown. Then he turned to Danny and whispered, “Hey, pop quiz today!”

Danny’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t look away from his phone. “Sure,” he said, placating.

“No, really.”

Danny paused. He stopped texting, eyes flitting over to Stiles suspiciously. Stiles had done nothing to deserve that kind of scrutiny. Nothing. Zip. Nada. 

…okay, so maybe there was that one thing. And the other thing in eighth grade. And that third thing that lasted three months in sophomore year. But there was, like, oodles of character development between then and now. He was mature!

Sort of.

“Look,” Stiles said reasonably, “either you study, there’s a pop quiz, and you do well, or you study and there’s no pop quiz, but you still get a good review. Win-win, right?”

Danny blinked twice, expression furrowed and thoughtful. “You have a point,” he allowed, reaching for his notes.

Ridiculously pleased, Stiles clicked two finger guns at the other guy, pairing it with an obnoxious wink.

Danny’s eyebrows scrunched together, bewilderment tangling with second hand embarrassment and a genuine sense of _what the hell_. Then, on the heels of that sensation, was half of an articulated thought: 

_…be cuter if he wasn’t such a douchebag…_

Stiles propped his chin up on the heel of his palm. Strangely? Not the first time he’d heard that.

-

???

Red hair spilled over Stiles’ arm. Golden skin clashed beautifully with it, right up to the delicate swoop of Lydia’s closed eyelids. Even in the light of the full moon, she was the very essence of life and light and the sun. 

But that didn’t last long. The longer he looked at her, the faster that illusion went away. There were dark bags under her eyes. Her skin was pale and death-like. Black blood clotted under her nose and her ears and stained her chapped lips. Even her hair was limp—shorter somehow, straggly.

Lydia was in his lap, clutched to him. He’d never been closer to her, but he’d never felt colder.

“Hey.” Scott crouched in front of him, polished shoes sinking about an inch in the mud. Stiles looked up at him blindly. “Hey, I need you- I need you to stay calm, okay? Wait until your mom gets here?”

The world was cotton balls and tunnels, and he couldn’t understand, couldn’t hear anything but the dull crunching. 

Pressure clamped down on his shoulders, digging claws into his skin. He felt… something. Scott’s mouth was moving, Stiles’ mind was buzzing. And, slowly, something replaced the numbness. Something replaced the ill understood grief.

Still talk talk talking, the something said. Still making excuses, still trying to manipulate. Still trying to control the pieces on the board.

Stiles breathed out heavily through his nose, fingers clutching at the cooling weight of his girlfriend on his lap. His body tensed up into a coil, into a tightly wound spring. 

Scott’s expression was alarmed, like he could smell the aggression pumping through Stiles’ veins—the rage, the hatred. But still his mouth moved, quick and fast, still trying to talk his way out of it, like he always did, like she always let him.

The something spoke gently into his ear. _You know she’ll let him get away with this, like she always does. Always protecting her baby brother._

The truth shot through him like the snap of a broken neck. Scott’s eyes flashed a strange, guilty blue

Stiles’ rage quickly grew teeth and claws. 

-

April 2013  
Ever since he gained super powers, Stiles’d had a steady week of nightmares, sometimes as many as two or three a night. They were repetitive and frightening and violent, most of the time, and they left Stiles feeling raw, like there were gaps missing in his brain. The feeling wouldn’t leave him until the feeling of unreality left his mind. 

Other than that, though, he hadn’t given the dreams themselves much thought. 

That is, until he started waking up in strange places. 

Stiles woke up, gagging in his mouth. “ _Scott_ ,” he gasped desperately. He didn’t recognize his surroundings right away—too many trees and patches of dirt at first. He clawed at the ground, scrambling to his feet. When finally standing, he understood what he’d missed on while on the ground.

He’d just been dreaming of this exact place. And, in his dream, he’d been attacking his best friend with his teeth and hands and- oh god. 

Stiles’ stomach rolled. He braced himself against a tree, fist pressed against his mouth. Just a dream, just a dream. He clenched his eyes shut. Just another dream. 

It took him five minutes to find his cooler head, his rational mind. When he did, he patted his pockets down. But his sleep pants were empty. He didn’t even have his keys.

Water splashed behind him. Shit.

Stiles winced, slowly turning around, facing the place he’d drowned in only a handful of days ago.

The pond was murky in the low light of the waning moon, but it wasn’t bubbling, wasn’t tar-like. Hugging himself, Stiles watched and waited for the water to grow arms, for a strong voice to rise out of the water. When nothing happened, he crept closer to it, squinting into its shallow depths. 

Stiles had a theory about toxic waste dumps and hazardous radioactive material, but now he was starting to think his optimistic hypothesis was just that—optimistic. This was unfortunate, because cell mutation, cancer, these were things he could wrap his head around. But this? This might be a force he couldn’t understand. A force he didn’t want to understand. 

A force he just _couldn’t_ deal with. Especially by himself.

“Hello Stiles.”

Stiles jumped about a foot in the air, letting out an unholy shriek. After a beat, sense and more importantly, _recognition_ rushed in the void left by stupidity. He turned, rubbing the back of his head.

“H-hi Mrs. Hale.” 

Talia was dressed in a warm looking bath coat over a flower printed nightdress. Absurd orange bunny slippers adorned her feet. She had the faintest of winces on her face, like she wanted to complain about his manly scream but was too mature to do so. A beat later, though, her eyes were moving behind him, casted out over the pond. Lake. Submerged tree cellar—whatever. 

“This isn’t the first time you’ve been out here,” she said finally, expression firming. “You shouldn’t be here.” Stiles thought about the grouched out protests he’d gotten from about every other Hale about toeing their property line. In comparison—and despite being the best person to lodge a complaint, being the owner—she just sounded resigned, soft. Knowing.

When her eyes swung back to him, big and sad, Stiles knew immediately that he wasn’t the only one who knew the pond for what it was. He stumbled forward one step, then another, half-reaching out to her. He stopped halfway there, afraid for reasons far more intimidating than pain.

“Mrs. Hale,” he tried. His voice was small. “What’s happening to me?”

Talia’s forehead creased with sympathy. After a beat, she lifted her arm. “Why don’t you tell me?”

She walked him back to the Hale house deeper in the woods. Stiles wasn’t afraid of getting lost; she had him clasped against her side the whole time. He was taller than her now, but he gladly stooped for her. She was like a cuddly, comforting furnace with arms. 

Stiles explained—poorly—what was going on in trembling, tripping words. Judging it to be too weird, he didn’t tell her about the powers, but he told her about the voice and what happened the last day of his WWEC volunteering. He told her about seeing Gage on the side of the road. He told her a lot about the dreams.

They walked quietly for about five minutes after Stiles finished. They broke past the tree line that marked the clearing between the Preserve and the Hale house. The large mansion sat in front of them in all of its glory—three stories of solid wood paneling and crystal clear windows. Only a handful of them were lit; most of the house was dark, covered with shadows.

The sight of it galvanized something in Stiles, reminding him of what reality was like. And reality didn’t have Hales helping him out for free.

He pulled away from Talia, putting distance between them. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said flatly, brushing the last lingering bit of dirt off his shirt. “I appreciate the unconditional listening ear, but you don’t seem exactly surprised.”

Talia watched him with intent. “I’m not,” she admitted. She glanced at the house, as if calculating something. Then she looked back at him, voice pitching low. “And it’s not easy for a person in… my position… to admit this, but I’m… _genuinely_ at a loss what to do.” She looked bleak, as if a wall between them had been stripped down. Then she looked very, very sad. “I would very much prefer not to drag you into this.”

Needing to look away from her, Stiles ducked his head, rubbing at his hair. “So you do know what’s going on…”

There was a long pause. The silence broke with Talia’s voice, warm and fond. “Your family has such a knack for butting your heads into my family’s business.” She said this with a laugh in her voice. When his head shot up, she just smiled, strained but enigmatic. “This should bother me more than it does.” She nodded suddenly, coming to a conclusion. “Naiads and nemetons.”

“What?”

“Naiads and nemetons,” she repeated. She closed the distance between the two of them, clasping both of his shoulders in her firm warm hands. “Research them. Decide if you want to get involved then and come see me. I’ll tell you everything you need to now. And if you don’t want to get involved, let me know.” Her dark eyebrows winged up, her expression twisting earnestly. “And I swear to god, Stiles, if you don’t want this burden or this life, I will do everything in my power to get you out of this.”

Despite his general suspicion towards all Hales, that sounded like a promise he could put money on.

-

???

Stiles ran down a different hallway to escape the monster in his nightmare. 

He didn’t get that far.

Now he was on the floor, crawling on his side. Pain—fiery hot and icy cold—zipped through his body in alternating currents, radiating out from the bloody gore of a bite on his hip. The arm he used as leverage was as bristly as a porcupine, riddled with glass from the trophy case. Then, as if it couldn’t get any worse, his whole body clenched like a fist, making him cough out bile-tasting liquid that was nowhere near the right color.

Five feet away, the door—his denied salvation—opened, letting in a group of teens. No longer jeering and grinning, they stood quietly together, looking down at Stiles in pity in their gleaming gold and blue eyes. Some of them looked crestfallen, even guilty. 

At some signal, they turned and left, sparing Stiles only a few furtive glances where he laid on the floor.

A massive hand came out of nowhere, flipping Stiles over to his back. Stiles cried out in fear and agony, tears leaking from his eyes. This proved too much for his chest, as he started coughing up blackish liquid, almost too much to breathe. 

The monster above him was a watery image through the pain, tears, and asphyxiation, but Stiles could have sworn the thing flinched, pulling back. When he could breathe again, he watched the monster, curiosity peeking through the rest.

The monster’s eyes were wide, its ears flattened back, and, through the pain and terror Stiles felt, he couldn’t help but marvel at the humanity in that horrible, bloody face, that mean nightmare creature that had done him so much harm for so little purpose. 

It crouched down next to Stiles, bending over his body. Black tipped claws scraped gently over Stiles’ forehead, a markedly soothing gesture. The other hand stretched out over his chest, spanning it with ease. Stiles couldn’t help but be alarmed how warm it was, how cold he was by comparison, how much colder he was getting. 

How much pain he was suffering. 

Without any warning, the creature pressed down with full force.

-

April 2013

Stiles woke up, flailing and struggling for air. The darkness around him surrendered none. He rolled over the hard floor, scratching his neck and chest frantically, feeling someone crushing his heart, his lungs, his-

Stiles ended up having a full blown panic attack on the floor in the middle of his high school. It was the loneliest night of his life.

It could have been an hour to a day later—he didn’t know, didn’t care—but he finally unclenched, taking himself through familiar steps back to normalcy. Or some version of normal, anyway. Fear and anxiety tickled at his brain. He couldn’t turn off his awareness of his body—of how much his chest hurt, how much his heart raced, how much sweat poured off him. 

But he forced himself to stand on wobbly legs, gritting his teeth against the muscle deep weakness in all of him. His old therapist had been very into exercising after a panic attack, he remembered. Stiles couldn’t manage that, but at least he could walk.

He looked around, rubbing at his chest slowly. The air was cool, but not frigid, and the hall he was in wasn’t nearly as dark as he thought at first. A little bit of light streamed in from the windows, part moon, part street light. The EXIT sign glowed red at both ends of the hall, not quite illuminating anything but piercing the darkness nevertheless. His eyes were adjusting quickly, giving detail and shape to the things he’d seen only as shadowy figures. 

Stiles stumbled around in a wavering line, eyes to the floor. There was no blood or blackish liquid where he had been laying, where he’d been when he was dreaming of dying. He didn’t expect that, or anything else really, but the fact that he was here at all was enough to make him feel helpless and angry and frightened. 

He found himself blinking at his faint reflection in a gold award. He remembered the pain of razor sharp daggers digging into his arm so vividly, his teeth ached. In a real pique, Stiles slammed his fist against the trophy case. It vibrated with the durability of plastic. 

Stiles’ fist unclenched at that. Plastic, not glass, he thought. _Not glass._ His chest swelled with sudden triumph, sudden glee—all of this was bull shit. He imagined everything. He was sleep walking and his nightmares were bleeding into real life, but there was nothing about any of this that was actually… real. 

Except for the fact that, in the corner of the trophy case, there was the faintest telltale shimmer of glass shards in the low light of the night. Dread swooping in on him, Stiles slowly backed away.

“Hey,” someone said behind him, voice low and soft.

Stiles yelped, jumping and turning at the same time. He slipped, falling over his ankles, and Derek Hale, wide eyed and surprised, lunged forward, grabbing him before he fell. Stiles gasped, digging his nails into the thick arms that were hugged around him, clinging as Derek lowered them both to the floor.

“Hey, hey, hey-” Derek said nonsensically, trying to soothe him. And so much of Stiles wanted to be angry at him, furious even. He wanted push off with a witty and scathing one liner before stomping off. 

Instead, he just gripped Derek’s shirt between clenched fists, trying to breathe. Later, Stiles would think that, in the mess of anxiety-inducing and danger that was now his life, someone was finally being nice to him. Stiles couldn’t be blamed for breaking his Hale Haterade oath in those circumstances, right?

Right.

Ten minutes saw them on the floor together. Stiles was calmer and his hands were to himself. Embarrassment was filtering through the anxiety slowly. But his breathing was slow, his heart wasn’t racing, and his back was to a locker. 

And Derek was a warm wall of warmth next to him. Stiles peeked at him. The guy’s nose was faintly wrinkling, but he said nothing, giving Stiles’ space. Stiles swung his gaze back to his knees. He pulled them up slowly, hugging them to his chest. 

_Don’t read into this,_ he told himself fiercely, clutching his legs tighter. They’d sat together like this often enough in the past, passing time between classes in secret corners and the corners of empty classrooms. The only difference now was Derek was fully fledged adult. Stiles wasn’t more than a few months away from being a high school graduate himself. And he was an adult, technically. So he should know better.

He should know better than to trust the comforting presence next to him, the rose color sweetness of nostalgia. 

Stiles turtled in on himself, chin wedging between his knees. Finally, with only the faintest thread of bitterness, he said dully, “You know what’s going on… don’t you.”

“Yeah,” Derek admitted, and that hurt. “But, in some ways, you know what’s going on better than any of us.” 

What a bullshit thing to say. Stiles turned his face away, resting his cheek on his knee. “You’ve been following me.”

“No. But after tonight, I think I should.”

Stiles snorted. “Whatever assuages your stalker tendencies, pal.” The reply was caustic and hateful and… a lie, really. But when Derek’s hand curled the side of his throat, he still flinched, expecting a fight.

All Derek did was stroke the back of his neck with a thumb, tracing his hairline delicately. Stiles turned his face back to Derek, staring at him from the odd angle. 

There was fatigue in Derek’s eyes. He’d shaved since Stiles saw him last, but stubble was already taking back what had been lost. That douche-y leather jacket was gone, leaving only a soft looking red henley. He looked almost… approachable. And the look on his face right then was just so… 

Kind. 

So kind Stiles wanted to feel hateful. But he couldn’t. His traitor heart was tender towards Derek still. 

Derek’s hand pulled away slowly, fingers gently gliding over Stiles’ pulse. Stiles swallowed, licking his lips. His heart jumped when Derek’s eyes dropped to his mouth. The air tightened around them, promisingly.

Stiles wanted to uncurl, wanted to lean into Derek, wanted to kiss him like there wasn’t bitterness and silence and lies littering up the landscape around him.

But he didn’t. He didn’t because he knew exactly what he looked like just then—a stupid freshman making heart eyes at his upperclassman tutor.

Stiles rolled away from Derek, swinging to his knees, then his feet. Derek followed after a beat, giving him space to pretend his faded Sonic pajamas needed their creases smoothed out. They were vintage.

When Stiles finally turned to face him, Derek’s expression was completely neutral. “Let me take you home.”

“Fine.”

Derek didn’t drive his sister’s bitchin’ Camaro or even Talia’s techy SUV. Instead, he had something that made him look more like a soccer mom than the woman he shared half of his DNA with. And she was the coach of _three_ teams.

Derek glowered at him from behind the wheel as Stiles climbed in. “It has a lot of safety features,” he bit out, as if he could smell Stiles’ amusement

Very aware that he might get left on the side of the road, Stiles clamped his mouth flat, nodding rapidly. This was an improvement, he acknowledged. About twenty steps up from the rolling rusty death trap that was Derek’s first car, in fact. He wouldn’t even let Stiles _breathe_ in the general direction of that monstrosity, the hypocrite.

“Hey,” Stiles croaked, slapping the cushion before settling in. “It’s, uh… cool. Very cool.”

“That’s a lie,” Derek grumbled, but he didn’t kick Stiles out.

Beacon Hills late at night was odd. Everything was empty and dreary. Fog lingered in thick patches in certain neighborhoods and not others. Trees stood silent and tall everywhere, like grim sentinels that were just barely tolerating the existence of man.

For now.

All the businesses they passed were gated. All the houses were dark. Derek rolled to a stop in the intersection. He stayed there, idling, even when the light turned green. But before Stiles could point it out, two long legged coyotes trotted in front of Derek’s bumper. They spared Derek only half a glance, pressing themselves flatter against the ground until they were out of the street. They disappeared into the Preserve in seconds.

Derek continued down the street after that. Ten minutes later, they were in front of Stiles’ driveway.

Thumbing off his seatbelt, Stiles eyed the empty patch of cement where a cruiser usually sat. His dad was in charge of the late shift for a while, so he hadn’t noticed Stiles’ recent spate of sleep walking. Stiles didn’t know if he was upset or relieved this was the case. 

“Stiles?”

He stopped plucking nervously at the seat belt. Reaching for the door handle, he paused, chewing on his lip. Then he turned to Derek. “Your mom gave me two clues: nemeton and naiad.” When Derek just nodded slowly, Stiles gestured impatiently at him. “Care to give me another?

Derek looked distinctly uncomfortable. Clearly stalling, he said. “You need more?”

“Of course I need-” Stiles bit down on his initial response, which was biting and caustic and in no way helpful. He counted to ten, exhaling through his nose. Then, calmer, he replied, “Nothing makes any sense, I…” He trailed off, eyes focusing on Derek’s chest, the steady rise and fall of it. Then his eyes moved up. 

“I,” he tried, failed, restarted. “I _know_ I’m treading on something supernatural.” Anxious, he watched Derek’s reaction carefully. 

For the longest time, Stiles was hoping ‘naiad’ and ‘nemeton’ were code words for something or that they were super secret acronyms. But between the lack of research support for that and super powers and being underwater for four hours…

Stiles was inclined to think Talia Hale was being literal. That this had something to do with naiads and nemetons. That this had something to do with magic.

And it had been very, very hard to come to terms with that. 

“How do you feel about that,” Derek asked flatly. The end of the question dipped down instead of up and his face was stone.

Stiles squinted up at the ceiling, considering it. “Confused, mostly.”

Derek looked way too invested in this all of the sudden. He rubbed his palms once and hard over the pull of denim over his thighs, then he was biting out, “And the reason why you haven’t talked to my mom yet is…”

“I want to know more before I open my mouth,” Stiles snapped right back. The irritation flashed like lightning—there and gone. Softer, he said, “I want to know what I’m talking about when I demand answers.”

The tension between Derek’s eyebrows eased in small increments. Eventually, he leaned back, shoulders loosening as he nodded slowly. “I don’t… know why I’m so surprised,” he said, and there was something sad, something that suggested he was reliving some memory—and that it was not entirely bad. “You were always very… inquisitive.”

Stiles frowned at him, not sure if he needed his back up against this. “And that’s a bad thing?”

Derek didn’t seem to hear him—or, if he did, he ignored the bait into a fight. “You’d always notice things,” he said instead. “Things that no one else did. You’d always ask too, thinking nothing of the question.” His faint smile faded. “It used to make me feel so anxious and hounded.”

Stiles hated the part of him that wringed its hands together at the thought. “I don’t remember asking anything bad.”

“Really?” Derek raised his eyebrows at him. “We didn’t even get through the front door!” When Stiles just shrugged, confused, Derek sighed. “The first time we went to my house, you asked why there were gouges at the bottom of the front door.” 

“So?” Stiles remembered that day. It was the first day of Derek’s tutoring, and everything had been traumatic. After he caught Stiles trying to sneak off with Scott, Derek’d dragged him to the Hale House with him for what turned out to be a grueling three hours alone time with the periodic table of elements. 

He had asked about the door, hadn’t he? He remembered, not because of the answer or the importance of the question, but rather because of the reaction it provoked. They’d been walking to the Hale House together, him and the Hale siblings, and he’d felt so rattled by it—the long walk, their perfect unruffled calm about every snapped branch in the distance. 

And when they finally broke into the clearing that had the Hale House, he’d darted forward happily. Mind still haunted by thoughts of mountain lions and coyotes and rabid raccoons, he’d stopped dead in front of the front door, demanding to know the story behind the damaged wood.

It was like a live wire went through Derek, Erik, and little Cora with her tattered middle school backpack—they were so taken aback. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Derek said dismissively. “There’s nothing wrong with asking questions.”

Except there was, apparently. That day and others. Stiles twisted his mouth, afraid to ask the question on the tip of his tongue.

He finally just blurted it out, hating that he still cared all this time. “Did your family have issues with my… inquisitiveness?” 

Because they had to have a problem with it. Right after he asked that question, Cora and Erik shot Derek death glares, like he was the cause of every bad thing that ever happened in the world.

“No more than I did. Except Peter, that is. Peter _hated_ you.” Stiles made a face at that. The feeling was mutual—and how could it not be? Derek’s creepy uncle was way too invested in his high school nephews, always popping up strange place with vague but menacing comments. What a tool bench. 

“But then,” Derek continued, “he forgot about you once the tutoring ended and you stopped coming around the house. I can’t even imagine what he’d do if he knew we were dating-”

“But he did,” Stiles blurted out. Derek kissed him in front of the whole school—including his family and creepy uncle Peter. Then he dumped him. Right after Erik and Gage disappeared, in fact. And when Derek kept being an asshat for months and years after, that stopped being Stiles’ go-to excuse for the whole thing. 

A thought occurred to Stiles. “Derek, did you… did you break up with me because of _Peter_?”

Derek paused. There was a slight part of his lips, a deep furrow between his eyebrows. Meanwhile, Stiles’ heart never beat so fast before in his life, and he didn’t know why. Because he wasn’t—wasn’t!—invested in this crap anymore. He didn’t care. 

He _didn’t._ He and Derek were ancient history. The Stiles who would have cared about any of this was dead. And so was the Derek he loved. This was Stiles, closing an unsolved case file. That was all.

But Derek, as kind as he’d been in their last few encounters, couldn’t even allow him that.

“The Reading Emporium,” Derek said eventually, instead of response. “It’s owned by a guy named Piper Bennett. That’s not a hint, by the way.” Stiles scowled at him—that is, until he remembered the question that kick started Derek’s nostalgia train. “It’s where you can get more information about naiads and nemetons. Ask to enter the back room. If he asks, say Derek Hale sent you and that…” Derek hesitated. Then, through gritted teeth, he said, “’The lone wolf dies and the pack survives,’” 

“Are you-” Stiles blinked at him rapidly. He thought about Cora’s wolf-themed sweaters in middle school, the Hales’ massive donation to the WWEC’s Wolf Preservation Program, the obnoxiously pink wolf air freshener swinging from the rearview window. 

“Are you kidding me?” Stiles finally squeaked. Derek’s ears went red. “You’re so lame.”

“I know. Get out.”

As Stiles yanked the passenger door open, still snorting, he wondered if he should tell Derek that the hole in his head sounded like a howling wolf. He decided not to.

Best not to encourage Derek’s wolf fetish, after all. And, really, his family should stop enabling him.

-

???

Stiles rose to the surface of the water of Lake Charity, except he wasn’t Stiles anymore. He was she. He was… it? He was they, maybe. 

And _they_ were drawn to pain, helpless to do anything but step out, straight in the middle of the scene.

The tableau was set, as inevitable as any tragedy—the girl, the would-be daughter, dripping black ichor and on her second death. The son, broken against the cradle of roots—a rampaging beta on the wrong end of his alpha’s claws. The brother, tainted, warped, an arrogant snake with venom greater than it could handle.

They could see their own touch on all of this, their own influence, their own corruption. All this death and violence under a sacred tree.

They stopped, focus falling on their friend’s red eyes and shaking clawed hands. They flinched and backed up a step. Then they backed up another. Their friend didn’t stop them, eyes sharp and betrayed and full of double edged hatred.

They dropped back below the water, taking the would-be daughter with them. Corruption leaked from her in a steady stream, a conduit for something worse. So much worse. Too terrible to allow her the peace of a proper death custom.

They smoothed curly hair away from her pale forehead. Blue eyes stared sightlessly towards the surface of the water. Her pale chapped mouth was slightly open, but she was no longer in need of any air. Black floated in the water in lazy spirals.

Their mouth opened. _Help me, help me please._

-

April 2013

Stiles woke up in his own bed, blinking through two pairs of eyes. The sight was so disorientating, he immediately flipped over and dry heaved, not stopping until the only eyes he could see through were his own. 

He skipped school that day, but it could hardly be called playing hooky when your dad all too enthusiastically calls in an absence for you. Stiles didn’t fake a sickness either. All he did was palm his face and say he needed a day off. His dad quickly agreed. Stiles didn’t want to read too much into that.

Around eleven in the morning, Stiles walked into the Reading Emporium with his hands in his pockets. It was a hole in the wall kind of place—dimly lit and overflowing with books. There was a free trade-in table in front—a book for a book—hastily stacked, but the ones on the shelves are meticulously and lovingly sorted into subjects. It lacked the sanitized edges of most book stores he’d been in, and between that and the heavy smell of lignin, he was in love. He wanted to bury his face in the closest shelf, he was so besotted.

Suppressing that desire, he eyed the man at the cashier instead. He wore a cardigan and a low slung gray flat hat, but that didn’t hide the fact that the man was getting on in years. He had pale skin creased in wrinkles and dotted with faint stubble. Dark eyes pulled in an easy, practiced smile as he said good-bye to a leaving customer.

Then those piercing eyes fell on him. “How can I help you young man?” 

Stiles reluctantly moved forward, rubbing the back of his neck. Some part of him was worried he’d get called out for truancy, parent excuse or not. “School project on mythology,” he said shortly, stopping on the other side of the counter. He looked down the length of it, eyes lingering on peeling missing persons posters—teenagers, runners, even a swim coach. All gone missing within the last two years, all from Beacon Hills. 

Shaking his head slightly, Stiles flicked his eyes back to the older man. After a beat, his mouth flattened and his eyes narrowed. There was something off about this guy and the way he held himself.

Stiles was used to minimum wage workers, okay? Those unsung heroes, biding their time until the end of their shift, not wanting or caring enough to do anything if you swiped something from the shelf. Wasn’t worth the effort, really. Not on their wage earnings.

But this guy was different, judging by the way he watched a woman lingering by a shelf near the front door. A shark in a fish tank. A wolf in sheep’s pasture. 

Having rather spotty control over his telepathy at the moment, Stiles caught himself reaching out. He barely skimmed the surface of his thoughts before he had to pull away, face pulling in disgust. The cashier’s thoughts were faintly oily and sharp, reminding Stiles of guns and gun powder. There was a certain reserve there too, an icy detachment from the rest of the world, and a civilized violence that, quite frankly, terrified Stiles in its benign exterior. 

As brief as the contact was, he did get one clear impression from the guy: that lanky looking kid with the brown eyes and hair was a nonentity as far as he was concerned.

The cashier absently told him which aisle to go to, dismissing him, so off Stiles went. But when he rounded the corner, he immediately pulled up the book shop’s website on his phone, tapping his way through it until he had the owner’s picture, clear as day, displayed on his screen. 

This guy was definitely not Piper Bennet. 

Piper was gorgeous, okay? And older. But not as old as the intimidating cashier. He also had a full beard and a bright cheerful smile and, oh yeah, he was black. There was no way Stiles was operating under a case of misidentify here. No way at all. 

He was disappointed that Derek’s contact wasn’t there. He had at least three puns in the work that revolved around the name Piper, and he was hoping at least one of them was cringe worthy enough to get back to his ex. 

He shook his head clear of thoughts of pettiness and pocketed his phone. He jumped straight back into research, deciding to stall with what was available in the front of the store.

Stiles wasn’t expecting much. The internet got him pretty far just by itself. Stiles was able to determine that the thing he’d interacted with that night was a naiad, and that he’d somehow been infected by her. Or “bestowed with Gifts” as the myths went. He didn’t know why Talia couldn’t have told him that upfront, but, whatever.

He still wasn’t sure where a nemeton, a sacred Celtic place associated with trees, fit in with a water nymph. He was running on the theory that the hacked up trunk in the middle of Lake Charity was a nemeton, but it was a stretch of facts, at best. And, besides, that was the least of his concerns.

His real issue was with the “Gifts”. Superpowers were cool and all, but Stiles was searching for the second shoe to fall. There was no way he was getting out of this with just underwater free hugs and super powers and the occasional freaky nightmare. These things came with strings attached. 

The naiad—if that was indeed the thing that had been talking to him for years—had asked, _demanded_ his help. What the hell kind of help did a powerful supernatural being need from a squishy mortal anyway? Stiles had a feeling it wasn’t good. It never was good in these kinds of stories.

In any case, the books on the shelves weren’t helpful. He got half of an interesting new line about a nemeton being a place of coveted power, but, other than that, there was nothing in the mythology section that he hadn’t already seen before.

Around three, he crawled out from behind the shelf, tripping over a stack of books. Even through his massive pounding headache, he didn’t fail to notice that he was the only one left in the store.

Well, him and the shark cashier, that is.

Rubbing his temples, Stiles approached the guy cautiously. Still no sign of Piper. “I’m hitting a wall. Can I access your backroom?”

The guy didn’t even look up from his newspaper. “There’s very delicate tomes and books back there. Rare, one of a kind, and old. Hardly the things that a child needs for a school project.”

Stiles was irritated at the man’s dismissal. “Can I speak to Piper?”

The cashier snapped his paper shut, leaning forward on the counter. Now that Stiles had his full attention, he kind of wanted a refund. “Piper is indisposed of at the moment. As his closest friend, I told him I’d run the store for him.” When the cashier smiled, it was brief and with all of his teeth. “Whatever you’d tell him, you can tell me.”

There was a long pause. The hairs on the back of Stiles’ neck stood straight up. Tentatively, Stiles reached out for the man’s surface thoughts. Most of them were unflattering, but the part that Stiles lunged for hopefully, that one speck of familiarity, was the one he could least explain. 

“I was sent by Derek Hale,” Stiles said slowly, shoulders stiff. Eyes narrowing, he said, “The lone wolf dies and the pack survives.”

The man’s head went silent, discordant and tangential thoughts collapsing into one point, as deliberate and sharp as a knife. “I see,” he said finally. Then, abruptly, he stood. “Come.” 

Warring with himself, Stiles followed him into the back room. The man introduced himself as Chris. Uncomfortable for some reason, but unable to put his finger on it, Stiles introduced himself as Scott. 

The room was just as densely packed as the front. This was where the smell of old books was coming from. But there wasn’t just books there. There were scrolls and jars and scraps of metal with imprints in them. A glass covered shelf kept the delicate ones out of reach. There was no rhyme or reason to any of them, not from what Stiles could see. Hell, half of the books didn’t even have titles.

He had no idea where to start. So he clung to his one lifeline. “Derek said he’d call ahead and ask Piper to pull out the books for me.” And Stiles had the tersely worded text to prove it.

“Then that must be what those were for.” Chris gestured magnanimously at a table in the corner. Stiles’ focus honed in on a bright pink post-it note. He lifted it from a soft gray cover. It said ‘For D. Hale.’

Stiles immediately flipped open the book on the top. He paused on the title page, fingers skimming the corners.

“Not often a young man like yourself chooses to research naiads and nemetons, especially for a… school project,” Chris commented idly, still behind Stiles. “That combination alone is… odd.”

“What, young men and research?” 

“Naiads and nemetons,” Chris retorted, voice deepening slightly. Someone didn’t like his flippancy…

“Why?” Stiles skimmed the top book before setting it aside as a stretch. “Do you know much about the Celtic religion or Greek mythology?”

“I know very little. But if you’re researching a tree, surely then you’d want to research a tree nymph, not a naiad.”

“Nope,” Stiles replied, popping the last syllable. “Definitely need to research a naiad.” He paused briefly in his sorting. “Hypothetically speaking, anyway...”

“Naiads are fickle, dangerous, and vengeful creatures,” Chris said with purpose. “That is not hypothetical.”

Stiles cocked his head slightly, considering that. He turned, facing Chris, a small book cradled between his hands. “But they can also be helpful.”

“Self-serving at best,” Chris said dismissively.

Stiles tapped the spine of the book against the corner of the table, trying to figure out where Chris was going with this. “Nurturers of young? Protectors of girls? Defenders of water-supplies? I can see where that would be super sketchy.”

Chris’ expression was dark. “Hylas of the Argo, dragged off by naiads fascinated by his beauty-”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Come on, one story doesn’t-”

“Nomia,” Chris thundered, clearly worked up about this, “viciously blinding her lover-”

“Her _unfaithful_ lover, don’t even gloss over that!” Stiles countered triumphantly. There was pause, then he was saying, “And lots of bad things happen to naiads in all the stories. They can’t help but react.” When it was Chris’ turn to scoff and roll his eyes, Stiles pressed onward. “What about Daphne? Or Oenone? Or Pallas? Are you telling me you don’t feel for those ladies?”

“Then what about Salmacis, forcing herself on a young man and absorbing him when he tried to flee-”

“They were technically fused, but... Yeah, that one was sort of bad.” A suspicion tickled at the edge of his mind. He thought quickly, then countered with, “What about Thetis? Mother of Achilles, healer of Hephaestus-”

“Thetis was a nereid, fool!” 

“Was she?” Feigning ignorance, Stiles looked down at his fraying shoes, nodding once. Then he dropped the act. “Strangely specific bit of knowledge to have. You know, for a guy who doesn’t know much about these things.” He looked up then, gaze steady.

Chris paused, eyebrows pressing together. Stiles watched him carefully, one foot pointed towards the door. After all, he’d just caught the shark cashier in a lie.

Confusion swirled through his thoughts, then irritation. Then, slowly, spikes of reluctant respect pierced through that all. But also dislike. 

Finally, Chris snorted. “I got caught up with the foot chase in front of me and I missed the marathon happening around me. Yes, very good. Let’s drop the charade.” He turned sharply to the right, striding forward. Stiles backed up into the table, watching him warily, but all Chris did was rip open one unassuming closet, then the other.

The doors hid a map riddled with thumb tacks, newspaper clippings, and red string. It was a map of Beacon Hills.

“There have been reports of whispering in the waters,” Chris bit out, flipping on a switch, throwing the whole board into light. “Did you know that? Or is all this _hypothetical_ to you?”

Stiles froze. Then, on slow feet, he approached the map. “Whispering?” he echoed.

Chris had a savage look on his face, more teeth than humanity. “It’s her song. She’s luring people close to her. “

Stiles squeezed the forgotten book between his hands, eyes jumping all over the map. “Who hears her?” 

“A few here and there. Mostly those who have been touched by her before. Others hear her as well, but only if they’re sensitive to the thing she’s using to amplify her song.”

Stiles’ grim attention darted from poster to poster of smiling people. Out in the front, the missing persons posters only hinted at the actions of a good citizen, passing on the word to his patrons. Back here, the missing posters suggested a more active role. Back here, someone was investigating, someone was connecting dots, someone was…

Someone knew exactly what was going on. Stiles squeezed the book so hard, the cover started to bend.

“What is it?” he croaked out. “What’s the thing amplifying her song?”

Chris paused just long enough to draw Stiles’ eyes back to him. “The nemeton, my boy. The tree of power. The very tree she is hoarding in Lake Charity.” Chris smiled slowly, showing his teeth. “Hypothetically, of course.”

-

???

She hugged a jar low against her stomach. A long, gauzy dress danced near her heels as she turned slowly, attention moving from one thing to the next. Wind moved between loose leaves, rattling them above her. The earth beneath her bare feet was moist and soft, different than what she used to, but not overly so.

Yes. She could do this.

“Are you sure?” She turned to the beloved voice, a smile springing to her lips. 

Not ten feet away, Talia stood there at the base of a tree, face rounded and young, but stern. The weight of her newly inherited mantle didn’t fit her. Not yet.

“There’s something wrong here,” she replied. English was harder for her, but not impossible as long as she thought of her words. “Something evil is lingering in the roots. It’s had time to sink in, warp the nemeton.”

Talia looked troubled. “I thought so.”

She paused, hugging the jar tighter to herself. Wanting to do something to ease the line between her friend’s eyes, she promised too much, too rashly. “I can suppress it. As long as my waters linger here, I can keep the corruption from spreading.”

Talia’s red eyes flicked to her, cold, no longer a memory. “And if it spreads to _you_?”

She blinked once and Talia was gone. She was standing alone, without a jar, ankle deep in water, and there was a knife in her chest. It ached with little boy hurt and betrayal. 

She blinked again and it wasn’t there. She was rising from her waters, a man at her feet. He had red eyes like her friend, but it was weakened. Omega alpha. A wolf lingering on that twisted face, but a man lingered behind it. It was the man that was worse. It was the man that reeked of kin blood. 

It was the man that put the knife in her chest. 

“With you out of the way,” the omega alpha hissed, “I’ll have the power of the nemeton.”

Like the power of the nemeton and this vicious beast were even compatible. Trying to bide time, she pushed out, borrowing power from the tree, twisting the Preserve so that only those led to her could find their way to the nemeton. 

But she overextended herself. The corruption sank into her heart with the quick feet of the fox that bore it. 

-

April 2013

Stiles woke with a gasp in his car, still in the parking lot of Piper’s Emporium. He shook his head clear of the cobwebs clinging to it, clenching and unclenching his hands on his steering wheel. He’d let his head drop for a moment, only for a second, only to gather his thoughts.

He’d fallen asleep instead. He rubbed his mouth clean with the back of his wrist, blinking rapidly. 

He’d fallen into the habit of ignoring the nightmares. They didn’t make sense anyway. But this last one? It was the first coherent thing that came through that didn’t ooze like the ichor on Derek’s gross plants, thick and wrong, through his fingers. 

Instead, it was purposeful, structured, the lines sharper and clearer. After today, he’d started entertaining the idea that he was picking up on the naiad’s memories—warped versions, maybe. But still memories. But this one made sense, as alinear as it was.

It wasn’t a memory. It was a message, and that? That was terrifying. Stiles rubbed the bridge of his nose, body tight at the idea that the naiad could have her claws deep in his mind, deep in his thoughts as he went to bed.

And if that was the case, who was to say any of his own memories were true? Who was to say there was any validity in any of the dreams he’d had so far? Stiles thought about glass shards twinkling in the back corner of the trophy shelf and shuddered. 

He slapped his cheeks, needing the ache of it. Then he stuck his keys in the ignition and turned it, reversing out of the parking lot. It was almost dark.

He’d stayed with Chris for hours. Only when he left had it even occurred to him to question who was even running the front store. He found out quickly that Chris had closed the store the second Stiles turned his back on him, which was… creepy, in hindsight. But Stiles was in one piece and that was all that mattered. 

Yawning hugely, Stiles turned up his radio. Instead of music, however, there was a local news report. Once he heard the word ‘mountain lion’, his hand scrambled for the volume knob, turning it all the way up. 

He might as well have not bothered. The reporter’s voice was harried and excited, promising “more on this increased trend at 10”. Stiles swore at it, banging his hand against the dash. His mind instantly went back to his time at the Emporium. 

Chris and Stiles dropped the hypotheticals and started talking about the real consequences of a real naiad. As refreshing as it was for someone to be so direct and upfront with him, Stiles also wished it hadn’t happened, wished he didn’t know. 

All those missing persons posters on that board. There were red Xs over the faces of those found dead and nothing over the ones still missing. Every single death or disappearance, Chris linked back to the naiad in Lake Charity. 

Every single one. Stiles argued bitterly for ten minutes that one of the teens, a kid who used to be in his class, was determined to be killed by a mountain lion, not a supernatural creature. His dad had done a special assembly about it and everything.

“Mountain lions, pah.” Chris waved his hand dismissively. “Mountain lions are code, boy. Codes for her, codes for what she’s been doing to people. Codes for deaths and maulings no one can explain.” He faced the endless wall of faces, expression grim. “I try to stop who I can, but she reels them in, like a siren. I can’t get to everyone.”

Stiles smothered a hand over his face, heading the fastest way home. The weight of everything he had learned was falling on him suddenly like something out of a cartoon. 

Mountain lions. All those red Xs. All those people. 

And all he could think was why she’d go and kill all those other people, but not him. 

Stiles parked and went inside his house. He sat down on the couch, throwing an arm over his eyes. 

Twenty minutes later, his dad came in, looking exhausted. He muttered a quick hello, not pressing Stiles for more when he just grunted. He disappeared for a moment, noisily rummaging through the fridge. 

His dad came back into the living room, armed with a cold brown bottle. He fell into the armchair next to Stiles with a low groan. Stiles watched his dad through half-lidded eyes as he cracked open the beer, but didn’t taste it. He looked distracted.

And his surface thoughts were all too easy to peek in on.

_If the Hales weren’t there I wouldn’t know what to do mountain lions she said it had something to do with a tree mountain lions that poor kid is dead-_

Stiles sat up slowly at that. “Dad? I heard there was a mountain lion attack. Were you there?”

His dad smiled faintly and without enjoyment. “Yeah.” As an afterthought, he lifted his bottle and took a long pull. Stiles continued to scrutinize him, eyes narrowed.

He was used to his dad and how he spoke: succinctly and thoughtfully. This was why it was sort of fascinating to actually hear his thoughts and how circular they were. They were as tangential as anyone else’s, but Stiles somehow didn’t expect that from his dad—his solid, unruffled Sheriff of a father.

And if Stiles couldn’t stop himself from listening in on his dad’s phone calls, he sure as hell couldn’t stop himself from listening in on his dad’s actual thoughts…

His dad’s gaze was fixed on the carpet. He was still, but his mind was racing like a wheel tumbling down hill. _Mountain lions won’t stand up anymore why did Scott have to tell me Stiles is going to ask what do I say Gerard Argent isn’t dead-_

Stiles scooted forward. “Dad, why does Allison’s grandfather matter?” he asked urgently.

That got him a frown. “What? Where did you hear about him?”

Annoyed at the evasion, Stiles grasped at his dad’s thoughts harder. There was give there, but only so much. It was like trying to cut through a hundred folds of wet silk. But brittle too, like bending a popsicle stick. Give and give and give-

“He’s missing. You know that, Stiles,” his dad said slowly, but his expression was changing, slackening. 

His dad’s mind was more telling, but somehow less at the same time. Stiles plunged past the surface thoughts, falling into sensations and images he could barely put into words: _shivering Jackson stumbling into the street, green fading from his skin, Erica Reyes in her hospital bed, covered in blood, Lahey in pieces, his son in the basement, arms folded over his head-_

Give and give and give-

_Pulling the youngest two Hales out of a pit filled with purple spikes, Derek going last. The kid’s jaw stern throughout the pain, and Deaton knew? Deaton could help? Deaton was hands off? And Allison confused and angry, twisting around in her mother’s grip under the harsh lights of the hospital-_

Give and give and give, Stiles pressed _harder_ , knowing if he just… a little farther-

_Why my dad, she screamed. And Scott’s face adorned with four bloody streaks. He didn’t kill but took, didn’t take but got. Power of the alpha wrested away from someone too poisonous to care about anyone at all. Talia and hers chased the monster back into the forest, and all he could blame was Deucalion, who thought a mile in someone else’s shoes could teach anything but resentment, and the prick had died for that arrogance, leaving only a twisted alpha behind-_

But what the hell was an alpha? Stiles needed to know. 

_Oh god. He couldn’t lie to his son anymore-_

Give and give and snap.

A monstrous face rose out of his dad’s memories, and Stiles flinched, recognizing the form, pulling out of his dad’s mind as the red eyes of the creature hunting in his nightmare followed him back.

And, next to him, his dad was doubled over. He’d knocked over his beer and was groaning. When he straightened, confused, Stiles saw that his nose was bleeding and his eyes were black from corner to corner. His whole face was a twisted mask of pain.

Stiles’ nerves turned to ice. 

“Vicious vengeful naiad,” Chris whispered in his ear. “Doesn’t care who she hurts, just as long as she gets what she wants.”

“Dad?” Stiles whispered, terrified. He rose off of the couch, dropping to his knees on the rug in the puddle of alcohol. “Dad!”

His dad blinked a few times. As Stiles watched, the black fog cleared from his eyes. He dabbed at his face, feeling the blood. Instantly misunderstanding, he chuckled thinly. “Sorry, son. Must have pushed it too far today.” 

He rubbed the blood off on the couch—out of sight, out of mind, his surface thoughts whispered. All the better to take that look off Stiles’ face. 

Guilt sour in his throat, Stiles recoiled from his dad’s mind, the concern there.

“Mind getting me the aspirin?”

Stiles practically threw himself to the kitchen, shaking. He dropped the bottle twice. He made it back to the living room in under a minute, hand extended.

He felt like he’d aged a decade. His dad must have seen that in him, because, instead of grilling him on his behavior, he only smiled kindly. 

“It’s the weather,” he said. “Nothing more.” He clapped Stiles’ shoulder, dry swallowing two pills before hunting down a towel to mop up the mess he’d made.

Stiles felt like sludge. 

And yet, despite everything, there were still whispers in the walls, urging for him to help, help, help. Like what happened didn’t even matter. Like what happened didn’t warrant a pause in the onslaught. 

Stiles ignored them. He sank to the floor in the hallway outside his room, sitting there for a very long time.

-

???  
Stiles was running in the school hallway again. The bone deep terror, the path he took, even the shoes he was wearing… it was familiar. And all too familiar.

He was dreaming. His jaw tightened. He forced himself to stop in place.

If he rounded the corner, he’d run into the trophy case. He’d find those weird kids. Then the monster would find him, but… it wasn’t really him, was it. 

It was someone else’s memories. And _she_ was using them as a weapon. 

“I don’t care,” he spat. Then louder, he screamed, “I don’t care!”

The walls echoed uselessly back at him. He spun, looking for her, looking for the naiad. His attention caught on the reflection of a window—Gage, standing where he was standing, tears running down her splotchy cheeks. She was hugging herself, staring deep into Stiles’ eyes desperately.

But this was her memory, not his.

“I don’t care,” he insisted, hating her. “I don’t care!” The window cracked and the door behind him caved in under the weight of a hunting werewolf.

But when Stiles turned, he wasn’t in the school anymore. He was in the wide dark forest and there were yells and screams all around him. Panicking, he ran forward through a familiar opening in the brush. He stopped up short, realizing he was at the base of the nemeton, at the shore of her pond—Lake Charity.

Just as he was about to run away from it, he froze, because there were two people entangled on the ground in front of him. And the image in front of him just didn’t make sense. 

Gage was on top of Erik, pummeling him to death with tiny clenched fists. Never stopping, she let out an awful shriek, eyes black and empty, skin as pale as death. Big strong Erik was hiccupping and crying underneath her, face splattered with blood. He kept on trying to grab her wrists, trying to restrain her gently, seeing her for Gage the human rather than the thing she had become. 

A gaping wound in Gage’s side leaked still. Her white dress was stained black and she was wet from head to toe.

“Please!” Erik begged, crying. “Please, stop!” 

His only response was a demonic roar. 

Horrified, Stiles let out a hiccupping gasp and turned away. “I don’t care,” he gritted out, clutching at his hair. His panicked breathing betrayed him. “I don’t care. I don’t care. _I don’t_ -” 

The next word saw him choking. He clutched his throat, air burbling out of him. He waved his arms frantically, realizing he was underwater, drowning and not drowning, dying and not dying at the same time. 

There was no surface. There was no bottom. Clear water was tinged gray, then black at the edges, and there was only the roots of a warped tree in front of him. 

And something was coming at him fast from that tree, humanoid but too angular to be human. It hit him with the force of an opposing team tackle during a championship lacrosse game. Sharp fingers dug into his biceps, shaking him once while sharp teeth snapped at his face. A rounded end of knife stuck between them. 

And despite the aggression of this, the violence she attacked his dreams and ruined his life, the demand forced into his head by that shadowy face was more desperate than angry. 

_Why ? Why?!_

-

April 2013

Stiles fell out of his own bed, wheezing but triumphant, somewhere around five in the morning. Tendrils of frustration ebbed slowly from his mind, but she’d leave him alone now. He made his point of view clear enough. And if she disagreed…. 

Well. He’d figure out what to do from that point on, wouldn’t he?

He didn’t care if Talia and Derek were expecting him to figure things out. He didn’t care about Chris and his wall of missing people. He didn’t even care about the research or the rare answers to his question that he’d been finding.

He’d made his dad bleed. That was all he needed to see.

He decided he’d ween himself off her. His powers weren’t from him. They were hers. He figured she was like an infection he could fight off. He quickly spun a list of rules for himself—Five and a Half Ways To Dump A Naiad.

Rule 1, no more interaction with the naiad. No more enabling. If she sent him another dream, he would simply sit down and avoid acting it out. No matter what she sent at him. If she started talking to him during the way, he’d just walk the other way. No exceptions.

Rule 2, no more super powers. This one hurt a little. He liked being special, okay, but he liked not hurting his dad more. So he’d keep his telekinesis and his telepathy to himself. Easier said than done, but he figured that was her foothold into his mind. The more he used them, the more access she had to him. So he had to starve that part of him, pronto.

Rule 3, stay away from all Hales. Ha. Like that was hard.

Rule 4, stay away from Lake Charity. No, scratch that, stay away from the entire freaking Preserve. Yeah. Though that meant he couldn’t go to the WWEC anymore, which was… which was bad, because he liked working there, and they’d even made room for him to volunteer during the year, but… he had to do what he had to do.

Rule 4.5, stay away from water altogether. This was straight up impossible, but he was going to give it the old college try.

Rule 5, _be normal_. Be. Normal.

Right.

-

Stiles lasted three days. The rules he set out for himself seem to work for a while. The dreams died down and, when he hears her, the naiad’s calls are fainter, quieter, more subdued. 

The rule about the superpowers was the hardest to follow, even when stacked up against the water one. He’d gotten in the habit of skimming the surface of people’s thoughts and fetching things for himself in his mind. The second thing was pure laziness. The first was practicality. Telepathy saved him from being rear ended by a harassed school teacher on that second day. 

But he managed, somehow.

Then the fourth day rolled around, and his powers _exploded_ out of control.

He was at school at the time, and only the screams of his fellow peers drowned out the sound of everyone’s thoughts slamming into his own all at once. He hit the floor, but he wasn’t the only one. Lights popped and sparked above them. Windows shattered and all the electronic equipment in the area were fried. Three rooms were affected, including Stiles’ own. 

They didn’t even get to go home afterwards either. Claiming it was a power surge, their teachers just doggedly marched them outside and finished their lessons on the grass. Relatively unharmed, students enjoyed this change in routine, chatting excitedly with each other about the phenomenon. But, behind them, Stiles stayed silent as the grave, unable to relax, unable to unclench.

Because he’d been the epicenter of all that happened, all that was happening, all that would happen later, and he just…

He just couldn’t sit still.

Twitching and jumpy and complaining of a pounding head, Stiles finally got an excuse to go to the bathroom. He headed back inside at a half-jog under the weight of his teacher’s gaze. All too aware of that and panicking quietly, he tried to suppress his powers. He’d had control before, hadn’t he?

Nothing seemed to work. Doors were opening and closing around him. The lockers rattled ominously. In a classroom to his left, Bunsen burners flared high, inciting a chorus of yelps. When another fluorescent light bulb cracked above him, he bolted for the boy’s bathroom, locking himself away.

Taking deep, steadying breaths, Stiles leaned against the door, eyes clenched shut. He stayed there for full minutes, minutes longer than his teacher allowed him in the first place. Even so, he stayed there, eyes only opening when the press of thoughts, too loud to hear or comprehend, finally eased into a whisper.

When Stiles looked up, frown easing, he flinched at the sight of Gage staring back at him. Knowing this to be emotional manipulation at its finest, and nothing more, he scowled at her.

“Screw you,” he spat.

Gage stared back at him neutrally. She cocked her head at him. It took him a moment to realize her nose was bleeding, but the blood was wrong—black and gray. Feeling wetness slide over his top lip, he swiped at it.

His fingers came back red.

Stiles flattened his mouth. Then he walked over to the sink. Keeping loose eye contact with the apparition in the mirror, he finished washing his hands and left.

-

The final bell rang. “Be normal,” Stiles reminded himself. Classes were letting out all around him. “Be _normal_.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he rounded the corner and-

Someone short and sweet smelling collided with him. “Ow, watch it!” Lydia Martin looked up the length of him, her dark scowl fading as she recognized him. “Oh.”

“Sorry,” he said reflexively, fingers closing on her sleeve. Remembering his mantra, he decided to take this as a sign from fate. “But I’ve been meaning to talk to you. Got a minute?”

Lydia looked extremely wary, but she led him into an empty classroom easily enough. Then she turned, standing where the teachers stood, her books held in front of her like a many paged shield. 

Stiles closed the door behind him, idly rubbing the back of his neck. He wasn’t sure where to start. “You’ve been avoiding me,” he said, deciding on that.

Lydia considered that. “Nah,” she said unconvincingly, nose scrunching up. 

Stiles yanked his wayward mind away from her surface thoughts—not that he could read them. Lydia thought in at least four different languages at once, and those were just the ones he could identify. Even so, he could pick up a little on her anxiety and how very much she didn’t want to talk to him. 

“What about our project?”

“I finished it,” she responded quickly, tipping her chin up. 

Stiles squinted at her. “What happened to making me do my fair share?” He always felt completely unequipped to talk to Lydia, but this was a new low for him. He couldn’t read her. He couldn’t guess at the reasons behind the tightness of her shoulders, the awkwardness of her expressions.

Lydia sighed loudly. “I changed my mind, okay?” Her eyes skated around the room, anywhere but at him. After a moment, her eyebrows needled together briefly. “I was hoping Scott was overreacting, but he was right, wasn’t he?” Her eyes flicked over to him, bright green and sharp and so frustrated with him, Stiles almost bit down on his tongue.

“A-about what?” he stammered. 

“About you reading too much into what happened at my party,” she replied bluntly. 

Stiles pulled back like he was struck. “You were drunk,” he said quickly.

“Angry,” she corrected. “And mildly tipsy and looking for a way to self-destruct.” She scowled at him across the room, and Stiles couldn’t help but remember months and months of Jackson and Lydia hurting each other, then taking their pain out on everyone else.

“But you found me instead.” And Stiles had a whole narrative spun around that—friends turning into closer friends turning into more—but his mind shut down at a single shake of her head. 

“There was no _instead_.” Lydia looked pained then. Even apologetic, worlds away from the girl she used to be when she and Stiles weren’t even friends. She looked like she felt _bad_ , and that, out of everything, made Stiles’ mind spin out into denial mode.

And it made so much sense, all of a sudden. Lovely lesbian Lydia, angry with her girlfriend, taking it out the only way she knew how- 

And Scott had seen it from a mile away. Stiles… didn’t. That grated on his nerves. 

“No,” he insisted, trying to figure out a way around this, “You said- you said-“ There was something she said, wasn’t there? Something that proved her wrong, Scott wrong, the whole world wrong. 

But what was it?

“Stiles, this is-“ Lydia looked away, expression irritated. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to talk to you.”

Stiles ignored her, suddenly remembering--“You said you thought we’d date at some point back in middle school. This is more than you self-destructing. This thing between us, it’s been building up for some time now.” Her eyes were on him again, narrow as he took one step closer.

“You weren’t with Cora anymore,” he hissed, feeling his last chance at normalcy slipping through his fingers. “You were with me!” 

There was a long pause. He stared down at her furiously, waiting for her to crush him, expecting it, even wanting it in some degree—a final end for something that never was—but her expression was slackening. Her frown eased up and her eyes widened.

“Yes,” she said slowly, mouth moving awkwardly around the word. “I am with you.” Then she blinked, revealing coal black eyes.

Stiles jerked away in horror, slamming his hip into a corner of the desk. “L-Lydia?” he stuttered out, blinking rapidly. Where was her anger? Where was her will? Where was her personality?

What the fuck had he just done?

She smiled beautifully. “Yes?” She stepped forward and Stiles scrambled back, putting a table between them. She pivoted slightly and dropped her books on the surface, orientating herself to face him, her eyes still that eerie black. 

“What are you doing?” he asked in a small voice.

Lydia laughed at that, the sound entirely without malice. “Anything you want.” She dipped her head slightly. “I’m with _you_.” She bit her lip slightly, like he’d seen her do only once or twice, and Stiles could only react with bone deep horror.

His words. His desires. His thoughts, even. Somehow, within the last five minutes, he’d hooked his hideous telepathic fingers into her skull and knocked out anything that made her… _her_. 

He’d graduated straight from invasive mind reading to straight up mind control. That was the last thing he ever wanted to know about himself.

Vibrating in place, Stiles came to a decision. He straightened and rounded the corner of the table, swallowing when Lydia seemed to brighten behind those inhuman eyes. He stopped in front of her, toe to toe, and looked down at her. His heart thudded dully, rapidly. But she wasn’t a threat. He didn’t want her to be, so she wasn’t. So he took her hands in his, squeezing them gently.

“I’m with you,” she told him again, expression loving.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I should have listened to Scott. I should have listened to you. I know you love her, I just…” He looked down at her feet, his eyes heating up.

A note of concern entered Lydia’s doll-like voice. “Stiles? What’s wrong?”

“I guess I know a bit about self-destructing too,” he said, wincing. Then his expression sterned. He put power into his voice. “You’re not with me.”

It didn’t take, not at first. “I am. Stiles, I am with you. I-“ Blank black eyes stared back at him, ready to receive his order. Stiles never before in his life wanted to cry as much as he did right then.

“You’re not with me,” Stiles said firmly. “You’re with Cora, and the two of you are working things out. Me? It was a- I was a-“ Stiles had a hard time getting this one out. “I was a mistake. In fact, you came in here to tell me that you made a bad judgment call during your birthday, that you don’t want to date me, and that you love Cora.” Her expression was changing ever so slightly, losing that passivity. Her fingers were starting to pull away in fractions of centimeters as something more like Lydia Martin asserted itself. 

But Stiles had one last order to give. “You never want to be around me again, Lydia. Never.” She frowned up at him, but he continued, voice darkening. “I’m a cruel and manipulative asshole who took advantage of you and would happily ruin your life if you gave me half a chance.” Through gritted teeth, he hissed, “You. Despise. Me.”

She finally succeeded in pulling her hands away, stumbling back. Stiles watched her grimly as the suggestion finally sunk in and, with it, the susceptibly faded away. The black stain lifted from her gaze and, in its absence, rushed back in her passion, her vibrancy, her will—everything that made her Lydia Martin.

Relieved, he met her eyes. A moment later, he met her fist.

Stiles caught himself on the table, rubbing his cheek with his knuckles as Lydia furiously stormed away. She left her books behind.

Stiles lingered, nudging the spines idly. Something like dread collided with helplessness and resignation as he sat there, passive as the last thread of his normal life snapped. He found himself staring at the deep lines in his palms.

He’d tried so hard to wean himself off the naiad, but it was too late. He was already a hazard. He didn’t even figure out he was in Lydia’s mind until she…

Until he took something he had no business touching.

Maybe that was the point of all these super powers the naiad gave him—to make him do worse and worse to people until he did what she wanted. It wasn’t a gift or a bribe. It was a timer and he was the ticking bomb.

He had absolutely no choice but to move forward, no choice but to be her puppet. And every bit of this was his own damn fault.

-

???

Stiles woke up in the darkness, mind in a haze. He rolled out of bed, yawning hugely. He drifted past his wall of research, which was covered in papers and shrouded in shadow. Opening his door, he rounded the corner to do his business in the bathroom.

He took a shower, soaping up. The heat of the air fogged up his mirror and, half-dead with exhaustion from too many sleepless nights, Stiles took his pointer finger and wrote down the only question worth answering these days.

_What does she want?_ The block letters stared at him accusingly, still unanswered, even after everything he’d done. He snorted at himself and got dressed.

The question chased after him. He dragged a comb through his hair. What does she want, he thought.

He brushed his teeth. What does she want? 

Using his towel, he wiped down the shower, the sink, then the mirror. What does she want?

Stiles gasped. He bent over slightly, suddenly unable to breathe behind a huge pressure in his chest. He groped at himself, backing up dizzily at the sight of red on his fingers. He plucked at his shirt, shaking fingers sliding up a long thin surface before curling uncertainly around a rounded end.

It wasn’t a knife at all. It was a sharpened bone.

He woke up in his bed again, sunlight streaming through the windows. He was drenched in sweat.

-


	5. Chapter 5

May 2013

By the third week of May, three of his walls are covered with pictures and newspaper clippings and the occasional online printout. Stiles even took to typing up his dreams and pinning them to the wall. To the outsider looking in, few if any of the items were linked. Stiles with his bird’s eye view knew better.

He knew more about naiads and nemetons than he ever thought he would. He also knew the names of every person who’d gone missing in the months since he first started hearing the naiad. He knew everything about everyone from Deucalion Kain to Garrison Myers. 

From what he’d pulled together, Deucalion’s murder seemed to kick off the events that led up to now. He was found in his hotel room with his front door bashed in and his throat torn out. Garrison, on the other hand, was still technically missing. His wallet had been found out in the Preserve, covered in an absurd amount of his own blood. Everyone between Garrison and Deucalion were either still missing, missing under extremely suspicious circumstances, or found dead somewhere around town.

No matter how he stacked the information, Stiles couldn’t figure out why the naiad had gone after these people so violently. Deucalion might not have responded to her call, but if Garrison was in the woods, following the voice, then why did she go after him? And not, say, Stiles? Stiles, the one who ignored her for years? Stiles, the one who threw up a metaphorical middle finger to her in their dreams?

Stiles was trying to figure out why he was still alive, and the search was well on its way to breaking him—if not with guilt, then with sheer unrelenting stress.

He retreated. Turned his attention inward. Stopped visiting Chris. Spent hours sitting under his research and staring up at it. 

This new change in him had not gone unnoticed. His dad was worried. His teachers were too. Most of his classmates distanced themselves, eyeing him like he was a bomb about ready to go off. And maybe he was. 

He was a bristling, inept freak with telekinesis, telepathy, and now mind control, and he had no idea how to control the last one. The fear of stealing someone’s will locked his jaw shut. All he could think about was ending this with the naiad, whatever this was. Then, and only then, would everyone be safe.

Stiles barely held it together for his and Lydia’s psychology presentation. She was incandescently furious, but he kept his mouth shut around her, addressing only the floor and, on occasion, the back wall. When she tried to confront him about that and the twenty points he lost them for this, he sidestepped her and walked out of the room. He felt bad, but he didn’t trust himself. He’d imposed his will so easily on her, without even trying.

He didn’t want to do it again.

But as he lost some people, he gained certain unwanted others. Erica shadowed him in the hallways daily. Isaac sat next to him now in the classes they shared. And, once, Boyd hung around after school, wordlessly helping Stiles fix his Jeep when one day it up and quit working on him. 

They circled him endlessly, watching him like hawks, and Stiles remained passive—neither speaking to them nor acknowledging them outside of safe nods.

Scott called nearly every day. Stiles let his voicemail speak for him.

There was an eight day stretch where he didn’t say anything at all, which kicked into gear what, in hindsight, seemed to be an intervention. He remembered staring, pained, at the people all around him—Scott, Scott’s friends, Heather, and Danny. Even Lydia and Cora were present, which threw Stiles for a moment.

He broke the streak then to tell them to get out of his house. No one was compelled to follow his order, which was both relieving and frustrating. But they left eventually when they saw he wasn’t complying with the heavy handed attempt. And when his dad came home to see that nothing at all had changed, he only sighed and ruffled Stiles’ hair.

“You know I’m here for you, right?” Stiles nodded silently. “Then… you know where I’m at when you finally want to talk.” 

That was four days ago. Four days of circling and talking and bids for his attention. Four days of trying to minimize his impact and failing. Four days of guilt and frustration and hiding, and Derek Hale just opened his front door.

He even had a key. Stiles blew. 

“ **Get out!** ”

And, to his sudden fright, his voice at that moment rang with the power that overtook Lydia’s will. It was dark and insidious, drenched with horrible hooks and sharp edges. 

Derek was frozen in the doorway, held immobile for a moment by a mental force that hit him with all the strength of a hammer. Then, watching Stiles slide backwards into the kitchen, hands clamped over his traitorous mouth, Derek’s frown deepened. He deliberately let himself inside, closing the front door behind him.

As Stiles struggled to comprehend that, blinking rapidly, Derek slowly approached him, palms up. “If you really want me gone, I’ll go,” he said quietly. His eyes were sharp and green. “But you need to tell me. Say, ‘Derek, I want you to go.’ And I’ll go.” His voice dipped lower. “But I think you need some help right now… don’t you.” 

Stiles couldn’t respond. He was nose deep in Derek’s mind and drowning for it. That odd ambient noise—more howl than wind now—draped over Derek’s wary and shifting thoughts. He felt like he was going to explode, but every time he tried to pull out… he couldn’t.

He was _stuck_. 

Derek stood toe to toe with him now, frown darkening. “I can feel what you’re doing in there. Knock it off. You’re hurting yourself more than me.” He reached out, grasping Stiles’ wrists. Tugging gently, he peeled Stiles’ hands away from his mouth. 

Stiles sucked in a huge breath. The contact did what he couldn’t, shooting him back into his own mind, hooks disarmed. His fingers were stained with blood from... what? The mind control backfiring.

“Oh god,” he breathed out. His head throbbed. The mind control _backfired._

“You’re fine,” Derek said brusquely. His Adam’s apple jumped.

Stiles ignored him. “Oh my god. _You don’t get it._ ” Anxiety skittered around in his veins like sharp clawed mice. He pointed at his head. “I did that, I did it to Lydia and she-“

“I’m not Lydia,” Derek interrupted.

“You’re _immune_ ,” Stiles blurted out, in awe. The feeling didn’t last. Weeks of strain and stress and anxiety crashed down at him all at once. His eyes filled up with helpless tears. “I didn’t- I didn’t know anyone could be-“

Derek made a noise in the back of his throat and dragged Stiles forward, tucking him under his chin. 

Stiles may or may not have had a break down at that moment, but that was between him, Derek, and the floor.

-

Of all the people to have a “So You Have Superpowers” talk with, Stiles had to have Derek, didn’t he? And if Derek was a hard ass science tutor, he was relentless with this. First, he had to do a full catalogue of his powers—how they worked, when he got them, how far could he go with them, and so on. Then he sat with Stiles on the carpet for hours, making him use his mind control on his immune mind so Stiles knew what it felt like, knew how hard he had to push.

“Surprised you’re a superpower guru all of a sudden,” Stiles said loftily. “And here I thought you were boring.”

Derek looked up from where he was holding Stiles’ hand. “Control is control. And clearly hiding away in your house isn’t helping.”

“Touché.”

“ _Focus._ ”

Derek was intense and methodical about the whole thing. He also had distinctly different points of view about how Stiles’ powers worked. It was through Derek that Stiles stopped seeing his powers as separate entities, but rather different shades of similar forces. Stiles’ telepathy, for example, was something Derek broke into three parts: empathy, telepathy, and mind control.

Level one was empathy. Feelings, emotions, simple surface thoughts. Level two was telepathy. Thoughts, memories, plans for the future. Level three was actual mind control.

The telekinesis was easier. Stiles wasn’t having issues with that. At some level, he’d always been able to move things—just with his hands. Derek suggested that his lack of familiarity with telepathy was making it harder for him to control. He also suggested that Stiles not get too comfortable with moving shit with his mind. 

“There are probably three levels of that too,” Derek grumbled. 

They didn’t test it. Stiles didn’t have to pull on his vague memories of physics class before he had an idea about what those levels were. If level one was telekinesis and level two was pyrokinesis, then level three was… what? Atom splitting? He shuddered.

Stiles just wanted to take a moment to thank the universe that the telekinesis branch of his superpowers was so well behaved. 

He couldn’t say the same about the telepathy branch.

“So it’s like I have a knife at someone’s throat—level one, right?” Stiles paced. His collar was bloody and, immune or not, Derek looked exhausted on the floor, watching Stiles with pale eyes. He mimed holding a knife. “And level two is when I take that knife and I poke them with it, just hard enough so they bleed. And level three is when I pull back and just _ram it_ -”

“That’s a terrible analogy.”

Stiles stopped playacting his metaphor. “Ah, but is it incorrect?”

Derek frowned, then looked away. The thing is, Stiles had been trying to crank his telepathy back to a level zero this whole time. Doing that was like compressing a spring and doing that was why he kept finding himself rocketing into a level two or a level three. If he wanted to maximize control, he had to stay at a level one.

Which meant, on some level, he always had a knife at someone’s throat. 

“Practice what we went over,” Derek said as he was leaving.

Stiles watched him motionlessly from the couch he was perched on. “Sure thing, Yoda.” 

Despite his outward surety, Derek’s feelings were a mess of inadequacy, worry, uncertainty, and a low level sensation of guilt. That last one was always present when he was with Stiles, oddly enough. Those nebulous sensations buzzed into actual words and solid thoughts before Stiles mentally smacked himself.

Level one, he reminded himself. Level one.

Derek stopped by the door, turning. Stiles put on his most rueful face, sure that Derek had felt him scrounging around, but Derek’s attention seemed to be focused inward. Until it wasn’t. “If you need help,” he said aggressively, “just ask for it.” 

Unimpressed, Stiles squinted at him. Then his eyes went to the ceiling as he thought about who he could have gone to for help for _misbehaving superpowers_. A counselor? A teacher? Maybe he could skip the red tape and go straight to Eichen House…

Derek followed his train of thought and made a face. “You know what I mean. Ask me. Ask my mom. Ask Scott. _Talk to people_.”

Stiles snorted, looking away, bitterness churning in his gut. That wasn’t going to happen. He was too used to asking and being lied to, especially if the person was close to him. Look at Derek. Scott. His dad, even, who had a crystal clear mental image of a seven foot bipedal beast, the kind of image that only came with a close encounter. Between that and the full moons circled on his calendar, Stiles had only one conclusion to make.

Everyone he loved lied to him. 

“Thanks,” Stiles said begrudgingly, and started to close the door. Derek caught it in his hand.

“Hey,” he said, all too close. Stiles glared at his collarbone. Derek smelled… really good, annoyingly enough. Warm and clean and a little like he’d rolled around in pine needles for a while.

“You’re not alone. You know that, right?”

Stiles’ attention jumped back up to Derek’s eyes. Something vicious and mean jumped up his throat, but, seeing Derek’s expression, he ruthlessly bit down on it. Instead, he traded cruelty for honesty, not knowing which one was worse.

“If I’m not alone, why do I feel so lonely?” 

Derek flinched at that, retreating back a few steps. Stiles watched him for a moment, weary all of the sudden. That sudden upsurge of guilt was really… exhausting. Especially when, after all this, it still remained behind lock and key.

“Goodbye, Derek.” Stiles closed the door between them.

-

Stiles spent the rest of the night awake and idly clicking through news articles from and around Beacon Hills. His eyes ached and his body felt leaden, but he fought off sleep, not wanting to see whatever the naiad had set up for him next. 

Around six, he slipped in bed and feigned slumber for his dad, who always popped his head in before he left. After the cruiser grumbled its way out of the driveway and down the street, Stiles groaned and rolled out of bed, denying the small part of him that very much wanted to catch up on his z’s.

Five minutes later, the doorbell rang. 

Making an exaggerated face of disgust, Stiles pushed himself off the floor. He ducked through his door and down the stairs with a slow two step. His dad wouldn’t ring the doorbell. Neither would Scott or his mom. And Derek, being in cahoots with the Sheriff of this town, would have just let himself in. So who in the heck…

Stiles peeked through the peephole. His blood turned to ice.

Chris was on his doorstep. 

Stiles froze. Then he jerked the door open, snapping, “ _What the hell are you doing here_?”

Chris blinked innocently. “You stopped coming.”

“That’s not an answer to that question!” Stiles retorted, barely keeping it under a bellow.

Chris seemed to be enjoying himself. “Oh, but it is.” He clasped his hands behind his back, but still managed to loom in a way that was both benign and creepy. “I am a researcher, _Scott._ ” Stiles flinched at the reminder of the fake name. “It pains me to see hard work go to waste.”

Stiles gritted his teeth. Then, tightly, he said, “What do you want?”

“Oh, nothing in particular.” Chris looked away then, as casual as casual can be. “I just wasn’t sure if you were still on the hunt.” His focus flicked back to Stiles, dropping from his head to his toes. “But, judging by the two day old clothes, the blood shot eyes, the ink stains on your hand…” A slow smile twisted his lips. “Yes, you’re still in the game. Excellent.” Chris took a step back, tugging slightly on the brim of his flat cap. Then he turned and stepped off the porch, heading down the road. 

“Remember, Scott,” he called out over his shoulder. “My store is your store!”

Stiles curled his fists into his shirt and watched him go, wary. In his foggy, sleep deprived mind, a giant red circle just affixed itself over Chris’ general existence. 

The more he thought about it, the more evidence he had against Chris. Sure, the guy had been a great upfront source of information when Stiles was still dealing with hypotheticals, but what had he done since then? He released only small slivers of knowledge at a time—just enough to keep Stiles interested but not enough to go researching on his own.

And, sure, while Stiles learned everything about those missing and dead people from Chris, was any of that information actually _relevant_? Or was Chris trying to control how much information Stiles had at any one time.

That had to be it. Just like everyone else—Scott, Derek, Talia, his own dad—Chris was being a gatekeeper, only letting out a little information at a time. He’d never been so irritated with Stiles as he was those first days, when he thought Stiles knew something he didn’t. After that point, after he figured out Stiles knew jack shit, he just… relaxed. Like a cat toying with a mouse.

This made Stiles wonder how much more Chris was holding back.

-

???

Stiles was underwater. Everything was quieter there—muffled, peaceful. The red glow of a sunrise bled through from the sky and, below the reach of it, Stiles clutched at the limp body of a girl.

He clutched at the limp body of Gage Bernstein. 

His power was waning, being overcome, but he’d still had half a hope he could… fix things somehow. Erik wasn’t wrong about the nemeton. Erik wasn’t wrong to bring her here. The power he wanted lingered in the roots of the trees. It could have worked.

But something else existed in the roots too.

It wasn’t working. He couldn’t get the taint out of her. The corruption filled every limb of her and, as time ticked further, he couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes on him.

Stiles’ mouth moved. Only bubbles came out. _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry._

No one responded. But, as he watched, unable to comprehend, Gage slowly turned to ichor and tar in his arms. When the feathery ooze covered her from head to toe, it quivered faintly. 

Then it turned into a fox, snapping sharp teeth at his throat. 

With one strong wave of his arm, he grimly dispelled it into nothingness.

Not yet. Not strong enough yet. Not while he was around.

But his chest ached. He cradled his wound and moved slowly to the roots of the nemeton. The paralysis was already on its way. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to move at all.

But still, he clung to hope. All he had to do was hang on a little while longer.

-

May 2013

Stiles was jerked awake. “Kid, if you need to sleep, go home!”

Unable to shake his dream—the sensation of watching the naiad and being the naiad—he just stared up at the irate waitress in confusion. She was in her forties and had curling blond hair. The crappy diner light turned it into a sickly orange. She smelled faintly of cigarettes, burnt eggs, and Windex.

Stiles smeared his palm over his face, flushing slightly when he felt drool. “Sorry,” he mumbled. Then he uncovered his face. “Can I order something?” 

The waitress’ lips pursued in suspicion but she gamely pulled out her little notepad. He gave her his order, turning his attention back to the window before she even left the table. He squinted across the street, wishing he’d brought binoculars.

On the other side was Piper’s Emporium. As usual, it was only sparsely populated, but there was only one occupant Stiles cared to track. 

He hung out in the diner for two more hours, watching out that window. Finally, around five, Chris, with his hat pulled low over his face, slid out of the building. He headed down the street, his hands deep in his pockets. 

Stiles instantly signaled for his bill and paid the sighing waitress, tipping her well for her effort. He stepped outside of the diner, feeling overly full from the food and coffee he’d consumed in order to avoid being kicked out. Heading to the left, he made a beeline for the crosswalk.

He was ambushed before he even reached the pool. A strong lean hand hooked into his elbow, neatly swinging him away from the crosswalk in a way that looked almost consensual. 

“Well, well, well,” said an unwanted voice. “Aren’t you being suspicious…”

Stiles recoiled at the sight of Derek’s uncle, Peter Hale. Great. Just the thing to top off his day.

He hadn’t seen the guy in a long while, but he had grown up a lot. Sure, Peter was ten to thirteen years older than Derek, but he never acted like it. Or looked like it, really. Now he did. His face was sharper with age, as were his eyes. He was favoring the beginnings of a goatee, which was so pretentious, Stiles almost smacked him for it. 

But it was the voice that kept Stiles’ hackles at attention. Not that he showed his caution on the outside. 

“What, am I nosing in on your turf?”

“And that is exactly why I never liked you,” Peter said with an air of someone who had forgotten. “Let’s chat. And, by the way, that’s not a request.”

And it didn’t feel like one either. Peter dragged Stiles half a street down and around the corner in an alley that linked the two streets together. The cramped though surprisingly clean area did nothing to ease Stiles’ concerns. 

Stiles didn’t know how he ever mistook that noise in his head as something as innocuous as wind. There was clearly an animal in there, and it did _not_ like Stiles. He felt antsy at best. Cornered at worst.

That feeling increased when Peter turned around, facing him. He looked Stiles up and down. “My, my, my. Little Stiles Stilinski, all grown up.” Slowly, he smirked. “You’re up shit creek without a paddle.”

“And you’re up the same creek without even a boat. What’s your point?”

Peter ignored him. “I’ve been watching you. Talking with Derek, talking with Talia. Getting an exclusive invite to Piper’s spoils. You’ve been a busy little bee, haven’t you?”

There was something intimidating about Peter’s focus, all his mocking. The sheer physicality he used against Stiles. And yet… Stile recognized that look from somewhere, didn’t he? That thirst, that determination, that tense, fiery need for-

Oh hell.

“Are you-“ Stiles sputtered for a moment. “Are you fishing for information?” Peter flinched. Stiles let out an incredulous laugh, putting his hands on his hips. “Wow, and I thought I was out of the loop-“

“You are,” Peter snapped viciously, his eyebrows pulled into a thunderous frown. His eyes glowed a sharp electric blue.

Stiles paused. Then, gently, he replied, “Not as much as you.” His eyebrows popped up. “Clearly.”

Peter’s teeth were… lengthening? He approached Stiles with purposeful steps. “Why are you circling the nemeton?”

Stiles’ heart lurched. He met Peter’s forward momentum with backward scrambles, feeling as if he’d jabbed a wounded animal with a pointy stick. And yet-

_-he was collapsing under the weight of his nephew, arms raised in front of him defensively. Erik was screaming at him, betrayed and hurt and-_

“What did you do to Erik?” Stiles blurted out.

Peter drew back, eyes widening. His mouth fell open and, for the briefest of seconds, he looked achingly young. He didn’t respond to Stiles’ question, but his thoughts spoke for him.

_Chasing black blood through the halls of the school and out into the woods. Running running and running, but Erik was already there, at the base of that tree. And, human she no longer was, she was killing him._

_He came up from behind her and snapped her neck._

Stiles was shoved up against the wall, a forearm jabbed against his throat. He could barely breathe. 

Peter was an inch away, glowering like a demon. “What. Are. You?”

Stiles couldn’t even answer if he wanted to. The pressure on his throat was too much. But he didn’t need to. The animal murmur in the head in front of him racketed up to a full on growl. It only took Stiles a few seconds to realize that the sound was coming in stereo.

A hand clamped on Peter’s shoulder, heavy and lined with claws. “Let go of him,” Derek rumbled. He looked _furious._

“Or what?” Peter challenged venomously. 

“Or I swear I’ll rip your goddamn head off.”

There was a long tense stand off. Finally, shooting Stiles a look of intense hatred, Peter pushed off of him. Too eagerly, Stiles grasped at the hand outstretched to him, letting himself get dragged behind his ex. 

“Derek, he was _in my head_ -”

“Can’t handle the taste of your own medicine, huh?” Derek turned a dismissive shoulder on Peter, doing a quick look over of Stiles. He even cupped Stiles’ face long enough to wipe the blood off. Peter was immune like Derek, but, like Derek, he was immune only so far. Level three was useless against him, but level two wasn’t. His mind kicked up a huge fuss—hence the nose bleed. 

Derek’s regard lingered longer than it needed to. Eye contact was made and held, and Stiles kept a loose hold on Derek’s sleeve, needing to feel it between his fingers. 

Peter looked frustrated at all this. “It’s not his power. It’s tainted, twisted-”

“It’s in the preserve too,” Derek replied quietly. He pulled Stiles’ hand towards his chest. He let Stiles choose to turn his palm inward, flattening it against his steadily rising and falling chest. “I know.”

Stiles felt like that answer was aimed at him too, somehow. And he’d harbored such anger at people who acted like gatekeepers, keeping him away from the information he wanted and needed to know, but now… now he felt like… like he could breathe a little. Because, even if he didn’t know himself how all the pieces of this puzzle were placed, Derek at least kept the cover of the box.

“You know,” Peter echoed, betrayed. “How do you know when I don’t?”

That hit Derek a little too close to home. He turned, shifting Stiles’ hand away from him. “Maybe Mom doesn’t trust you anymore!” he snapped sarcastically. “Ever think about that?”

Peter’s expression darkened. Stiles might as well have not existed for him just them. “You can’t blame me for Erik and Gage forever.”

It was a statement meant to be fact and truth. It was a demand. It was an order. It was a… plea.

The arctic chill never faded from Derek’s voice. “Watch me.”

Stiles’ attention turned inward. With one ear, he listened to Peter rattle something off about leaving Derek with his “dicey freak of a boyfriend”. Derek didn’t react to that, but neither did Stiles. In his head, he rapidly started piecing together the story—the bits and pieces the naiad fed him meshing with the rest he’d gleaned from Peter’s mind. 

“It wasn’t him,” Stiles said when Peter was finally gone.

Derek sighed, swinging around to face him again. “I know.”

“There was a monster with fur and red eyes-”

“I know,” Derek said a little sharper, expression going stony.

Stiles ignored him. “It was chasing her through the schools and it caught her and she died and-”

“Stiles, _I know._ ”

Stiles’ jaw snapped shut. He gazed up at Derek, mute, but the rest of the story played out in his head. 

Erik brought Gage to the nemeton to bring her back to life. But the tree brought her back as something else, something tainted and horrible to reflect the corruption in its roots. Gage tried to kill Erik, so Peter snapped his neck to save his nephew. Then Erik turned on him and…

Talia Hale showed up. She had to kill her own son. 

Derek was shaking his head. “I know all about it. But it’s still. His. Fault.” His regard was tense and Stiles was afraid of making the wrong move, but…

He still didn’t understand. “Then why do you…” Stiles trailed off. Derek had told him earlier to ask for help when he needed it, and that request would be answered. Here, he was asking for clarification, for information, but… he was suddenly getting the sense that maybe he was asking too much. That maybe not all the information in the world was his to have. That maybe the fact that he _wanted_ to know things wasn’t justification enough to demand them, to seek them out. It wasn’t enough justification to get angry and hold grudges against people who didn’t produce knowledge fast enough either.

There was lots of reasons why people didn’t share things. Secrets, trust, safety. And then there were some things in the world that people didn’t want to talk about, period. And this, for Derek, was one of those things.

“It’s okay,” Stiles whispered, feeling very small. “You don’t have to tell me anything.” 

There was a long pause. Then Derek sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. When he uncovered it again, he lost much of his intensity. Instead, he just looked tired. “Look, Peter’s the kind of guy who pulls wings off of flies and feeds them to ants.”

Stiles squinted at that. “What does that mean?” 

Derek looked left and right, briefly pained. Then, creeping closer to Stiles, he said quietly, “Erik killed Gage.” His eyes were wide with the pain of this truth, the agony of putting it out there.   
“And he killed Gage by giving in to Peter’s manipulation.”

“But the monster-”

“Was cruel and ruthless,” Derek interrupted quickly, “but nevertheless of the opinion he was doing us a favor.”

Stiles balked at that. “By killing her?”

Derek closed his eyes for a moment, clearly regrouping. Finally, he started again, lifting three fingers. “Ennis-“

“-it had a name?”

“-may not have had good intentions, but he thought he had consent.” Derek ticked that and the next items off on his hand. “Erik didn’t have consent, but he thought he was doing the right thing. But Peter?” Derek hung on to the last finger, pausing. His jaw tightened. Then he dropped his hand to his side. “Peter knew what he was doing all along. That is why I will never forgive him.”

Stiles dipped his head slightly, absorbing that.

Peter’s voice drifted into his head. _“…not going to last forever.”_ Stiles’ head shot up. He looked for the source of the voice, but there was only Derek in front of him. Crap, he was level two-ing it again, wasn’t he?

A image came to his mind—a younger, smaller Peter, standing with his arms crossed. The sight of him came from a distance, across a room. _“You know this. Bring her into the fold.”_

Derek gazed back at him steadily.

_Erik looked conflicted. “Mom will never go for it.” And it was the wrong response to take, a different response to the one Peter had gotten months ago—a sharp shove off of a chair and into a bush._

_“Who says you should wait for Talia?” Peter replied, casual in his dismissal. “There are three more alphas in town. Take your pick.”_

“Derek,” Stiles admitted slowly, “I’m having a really hard time staying out of your mind.”

Derek just looked resigned. “It’s because you’re so nosy,” he said without any heat. He rubbed a thumb over Stiles’ top lip. Stiles’ heart raced. “But, as usual, your curiosity hurt you more than it hurt me.” Stiles distractedly smeared a wrist over his nose, probably making a bigger mess of it. 

“Please stop trying to read my family’s minds, okay?”

“Hales aren’t the only ones with special snowflake minds like you, you know.” Stiles took a step back, needing the distance. “Scott and Isaac, Boyd and Erica… even Chris. They all sound like you and Peter.”

“Sound?” Derek echoed. 

“Yeah,” Stiles said slowly, twisting his sleeve. “Every single one of you has a wolf in your head.”

Derek stilled at that. His pupils were faintly dilated, which was telling. Stiles dropped his gaze to the ground, pulling his mind back to a level zero—even though that never worked. He didn’t want to even skim Derek’s mind right now, not when his face looked like that.

He’s been kind and forgiving this whole time for such gross privacy violations, even to the point of letting Stiles use his mind as batting practice earlier that week. The memory of it left Stiles feeling tight skinned and nauseated.

“I have to go,” Stiles said abruptly. “Thank you. For being nice to me.”

Derek looked conflicted. “Stiles-”

He ran away before he could convince himself to stay. But that didn’t stop him from hearing Derek’s last question:

“Who’s Chris?”

-

It took Stiles five minutes and a school ID to get into Piper’s Emporium, but that was just the front part of the store. In comparison, it took him thirty minutes, two hairpins, and a wire to get into the back room. When he finally got in, he snuck in on sore legs and turned the lights on.

With the distraction of an observer, Stiles was able to notice this time a cot in the corner and evidence that Chris had settled in pretty deeply here. He wondered how Piper felt about that.

Stiles wandered here and there, opening, skimming, then closing books and scrolls. There was a lot of information around here, but none of it was ordered. And it was impossible to tell which things were being shared with him and which things were being hidden. No neon flashing arrows, no nothing. Rude.

After a few minutes, Stiles started to poke around the cot. It was standard issue—small, gray, and faintly dismal looking. It had sheets tucked in around it and a thin blanket with worn edges. Stiles poked at a lump, then pulled out what he could only imagine was a potpourri bag, filled to the brim with withered purple flowers and black ash. He found another one moments later, then another—each fresher than the last. He took an experimental sniff of the cloth. That provoked a horrific sneeze but produced no scent he could pick actually.

Shrugging, he set them back where he found them. He flipped back the blanket to cram the bag back, only to find a full loaded handgun sitting innocuously on the shit, which… holy shit. Alarming, right? But not entirely relevant. 

Rattled, Stiles continued. He found three pens, a sheet of numbers, and a plastic spork, but nothing terribly incriminating. Or revealing, which was the whole point of this B&E.

About ready to give up, Stiles swept his hand under the cot twice. On the second round, the tips of his fingers skimmed against something hard and leather. 

“ _Yes_ ,” he hissed out, triumphant, reaching. He closed his fingers around it and yanked out his prize: a leather bound journal. He rolled off his side and into a seated position, palming his discovery. It was small, six inches by six inches, if that, but well tended to. He opened it to a random page. By chance, it landed on two pages of tight, handwritten notes about werewolves. More disturbing than the topic was the brown, bloodied corner on the left page. Hair rose up on the back of his neck and he slapped it shut.

Then he paused, fingers tracing the raised name branded on the front of the journal. 

A-R-G-E-N-T

After a beat, Stiles stood, sticking the journal into his pocket. It barely fit. He kept exploring, moving book piles and even jiggling his way into one of the protected glass cases.

At one point, he found a book that talked more about Gifts in the mythological world. He flipped that and another few books open on one of the tables, shifting from book page to book page. The book that mentioned Gifts defined them as contracts—quid pro quo kind of deals. Usually this kind of thing happened when a mythological creature aided a human in a power grab. That night after Lydia’s party, Stiles must have stumbled into a contract—“approach means yes” kind of bull shit.

In any case, the humans always got what they were looking for—the girl, revenge, the throne, whatever. In return, the supernatural creature demanded payment, usually a sacrifice or an item or some sort of quest. If the humans did not follow up on their end of the bargain, only death and ruin were left to them.

Which made sense, knowing what he knew of his naiad. Except it also didn’t. He was running off the theory that all those people died because they didn’t help the naiad. They didn’t keep to the terms of the contract, so she killed them.

But Stiles ignored her, turned his back on her, even mocked her at one point, but her response was… what, exactly? Making his “Gift” worse? Or was that just Stiles? Making his nightmares more confusing? Or was that her trying to explain something?

In none of these books did it ever explain a Gift situation where the slighted supernatural spent most of her energy trying to make her charge understand her point of view. It didn’t make sense, especially when stacked up against the naiad’s bloody history.

He was missing something here. Something vital.

“Well, this is unexpected.”

Stiles was too tired to jump, but his heart lurched pathetically. He kept flipping through the book in front of him, skimming through a semi-familiar paragraph. “Is it really?”

“You’ve crossed a line,” Chris commented lightly. 

Stiles glanced over his shoulder. “So did you when you showed up on my doorstep.” 

Chris’ eyes narrowed like they did when Stiles threw in one too many comic book references. “Pardon?”

Stiles raised his eyebrows at him. “I don’t give out fake names for fun,” he said simply.

Chris looked incredulous. “So that’s what this is?” He chuckled darkly. “Some juvenile attempt to teach me a lesson.”

Stiles made a wiggly gesture with his hand. “Well, that and… I had a thought. And I wanted to confirm it.” Stiles picked up the book he was reading and swung it over to the table between them. When Chris continued to glare, Stiles lifted his hands. “Hey, you did say ‘my store is your store’, right?”

A vein in Chris’ forehead ticked, fascinating Stiles. “Go on.” 

Reigning in his distracted mind, Stiles cleared his throat. “So, um. I’ve gone through a lot of lore in the last few weeks, and I have never read about a successful attempt at killing a naiad. Have you?” 

That wasn’t entirely true. He’d run into a few vague mentions about drying up the naiad’s water source, but that was the kind of action that seemed more in the realm of the gods. After all, she was the naiad of a pond and not, say, a river he could dam off.

“I have not,” Chris mentioned. His icy demeanor thawed slightly as he leaned over and looked at the book. “In my experience, transformation or displacement seems to be the only ways to deal with such creatures. I’m not sure if life and death matter to these creatures.”

“What do you mean?” Stiles pushed forward, not waiting for an answer. “Dryads are related to naiads. And dryads, when their trees die-”

“-they die,” Chris interrupted. “Or so the stories say. In reality, you might find them transformed. Bushes. Smaller trees. Roots that dig up through the ground and penetrate the world, decades later. The kind of mold that forms under the ground that, when unearthed, kills everyone who breathes it in.”

There was something… stubborn about that idea that appealed to Stiles. Survivors, Stiles thought to himself. Out loud, knowing his audience, he said, “Vengeful.”

“Absolutely.”

Stiles pulled up a stool, perching on it. “You see, you… you ascribe things like vengeance to them, but you don’t suggest we reason with them or anything. Try and talk them out of it. You-” Stiles’ mind filled in the blank he was talking around. “You don’t think they’re people.” 

Stiles had a hard time wrapping his head around that one. In the lore, naiads felt the whole gauntlet of emotions—love, hate, grief, despair, fear.

“People?” Chris echoed distastefully. He shook his head. “My boy, I don’t think they’re even alive.” He flipped to the next page, shrugging. “Nymph of memory. Naiad of purity. Dryad of faith. They’re objects, tied to their purpose, their functionality. If you can change their purpose, then you can change their behavior. Simple as that.”

There was something cold about that—too cold. He could feel it pricking at his skin. Or maybe that was the adrenaline, because he was long past the point where he felt safe with Chris.

Stiles clapped his hands once. “Well, curiosity assuaged. I’ll be off then.”

Chris caught his elbow as he tried to leave. “Are you sure?”

Sensing something dangerous in the air, Stiles tensed. He met Chris’ dark eyes and knew, for certain, for all he looked like a faintly daft golfer coming in from a game, this was hands down the most dangerous person he had ever met.

And today, he was on the wrong end of that danger. He felt suddenly like his continued existence hinged on the flip of a coin. Even before breaking in, part of him doubted that, once Chris caught him, he’d be let out again. But he did it anyway. It was stupid and reckless and informative, but…

Derek wasn’t always going to be around to save him. 

Stiles tipped his chin up. “Absolutely,” he replied, then gently shook off the grip on his arm. Feeling as if he was playing a very delicate game, Stiles forced a smile. “See you later.”

He had absolutely no intention of going back.

-


	6. Chapter 6

June 2013 

Stiles didn’t empty out his pockets before he left, so he still had the journal he stole from Chris. It was too good not to swipe. He learned not to trust coincidences anymore, and that family name just stank of destiny.

Allison Argent had been a friend of his, once. But after the death of her grandfather and the maiming of her father, neither of whom Stiles ever met, she turned tight lipped and cold, especially to Scott. She left eventually, yet another secret Scott couldn’t bring himself to share.

Stiles moved into his room, closing the door behind him and shifting the lights on low. Under his desk lamp, he cracked open another random page—this time, not blood stained and talking about werewolves. He scanned each page—lay lines and plant lore and signs of suspicious deaths, and more—but kept moving forward, looking for something new. Something recently stumbled on. Even the ten pages on werewolves was old.

Finally, he found pages with fresh ink. Better still, they were relevant—bits and scraps of notes on water nymphs and how to kill them.

There was half a drawn map of the Preserve on two pages. Red x’s littered the bunch, but none of them corresponded with anything Stiles had researched so far—not the deaths, not the disappearances, nothing. And there was nothing on the map to even indicate what the x’s meant.

But his gut said it looked like Chris was looking for something and utterly failing to find it. 

Stiles flipped to the next page—more notes and a typed up paragraph pasted across faded blue lines. The second thing looked like it had been ripped straight out of a book, which outraged his inner bibliophile. It was also written in Russian, hastily translated between the lines by an unfamiliar, unsteady scrawl.

The topic of the paragraph was a rusalka. 

Stiles recognized that name. It wasn’t like he didn’t bother looking up other kinds of water nymphs, it was just… Talia said naiad in particular. It was hugely helpful to stick with that narrow of a search parameter. There was a ton of mythological creatures associated with water.

Stiles went to the next page, peering down at the black and white pictures pasted within. When he figured out their subject, he blanched. 

Chris had mentioned transformation of purpose as one of the true few ways to handle a naiad. The next few pages had that same transformation mapped out in stages, in pictures accompanied by dry explanations of the grotesque scenes. You only got that kind of information through repeated experimentation.

Stomach rolling, Stiles nevertheless went back to the start of the notes—the ones ripped out from some Russian book. Most of it remained untranslated, but an awkward sentence emerged from the bottom of the second paragraph. 

“‘For she who deludes herself as compassionate,’” Stiles read, “‘deliver unto her heart a bone carved from the betrayal of ancient bonds.’” His face scrunched up. “ _What?_ ”

Next to that line, the translator wrote in a few guesses. _Oath? Office? Religion?_ Under them, the word _family_ was written out in a different hand and underlined three times. 

Shaking his head, Stiles skimmed through the rest. The Russian parts boiled down to this:  
• Discern nature.  
• Obtain opposing object of transformation.  
• Assault nymph with object.  
• Wait a month.  
• ???  
• Profit.

Agitated, Stiles buried his hands in his hair, restlessly combing through it. He popped out from his desk, pacing his room. If he was interpreting his dreams right, they were in the waiting phase of this plan—and that bone in her chest? It was the ‘object of transformation’.

Stiles froze. But it had been way more than a month, right? He flung himself back at the book, scouring it. A month, yeah. For a rusalka. Not for a naiad with her hand on the roots of a nemeton. 

The symptoms of rusalka in the transformation stage included paralysis, muscle atrophy, and loss of magical power. _Cocooning_ written over one line of text, bracketed by question marks. In any case, despite the rusalka’s clear inability to move, the notes advised distance, citing mental manipulation and weak minds. 

The next page had newspaper clippings: Greece, Italy. England. New York. There were seven from Beacon Hills alone. He only understood parts of the Italian clipping (wasn’t able to read the Greek newspaper at all), but there was one thing in common with every single story—someone was being saved.

But it was more than that. Lethal poisonings, treated. Cancers, cured. Innocence, maintained. The oldest newspaper was forty years old and thin, but, like its youngest American neighbor, it cited the hero in question to be someone who left the scene too quickly to receive the gratitude aimed at her.

 _Her_. And the New York article didn’t just give her a name. It also caught her on camera. 

Joy Waldrop.

An overzealous neighbor’s security camera caught her in the act of carrying a child towards an ambulance. Accidental poisoning, the article read, cautioning against the planting of innocuous berry producing plants in backyards. Joy’s plain, but benign face was resolute. Her entire focus was on the ambulance, but even so… 

Her face wasn’t pointed and inhuman, like the naiad’s. It wasn’t twisted up in desperation and hate, like the naiad’s.

And yet, there she was. His vicious, vengeful naiad, carefully cradling a little girl against her chest.

Under the picture, someone had discerned her nature, alright: compassion, trust, and purity. And it sickened him to think that this heroic act was the start of everything that had happened here.

Stiles propped up his chin on his palm, staring up at his littered walls. She already told him why she was in Beacon Hills. He had that dream on his wall as well. She was there because something corrupted the nemeton and Talia needed help protecting it. And what better than a naiad of compassion and trust and, more importantly, purity over something that gained so much taint?

But someone had interfered with that, starting up her transformation to… what? Get Joy away from the nemeton? Stiles squinted down at the journal, those hand written how-to manual how to jumpstart a naiad’s corruption.

Who the hell was Chris to have this kind of information anyway? 

Stiles shoved aside the journal, pulled out his laptop instead. In the search engine, he typed in “Chris Argent”. 

Argent was an odd name, but it wasn’t unique. There were plenty of Chris Argents in the world, but he only needed one. He modified his search with a couple terms, narrowing it to his part of the globe and, boom, only one Chris Argent in Beacon Hills. News article after news article popped up, parading the word ‘mountain lion’ in their titles. 

These finds, however, were duds—barely two paragraphs of filler pretending to be news, no pictures. Stiles grumbled, backspacing to the search page over and over and over. That is, until he hit on the Beacon Cycler, BHHS’ own school newspaper.

The article was named simply “Beacon Hills Man Maimed by Mountain Lion”. It was a much, much deeper exposé than its professional counterparts, written by one Matt Daehler. Matt’s typical creepiness bled through the text from word one. For starters, despite the headline, the article spoke very little about the mountain lion attack on Chris Argent. Instead, it had entirely too much information about Allison. But Stiles supposed that was what happened when one person was the paper’s head editor, head writer, and head photographer.

The article was largely picture based, and it was in one of the pictures that Stiles learned that sweet and warm Allison Argent had a mother in the form of a severe but smiling red haired woman named Victoria Argent. Her father, Chris Argent, made his debut as well in the images. 

“What the hell,” Stiles muttered at the unfamiliar face. The man was a strange. He had the same kind of intensity about the eyes as his wife, a watchful sharpness that made Stiles think he was aware of the photographer more often than not, but that was the only thing familiar about him. 

He wasn’t, however, the Chris Argent Stiles knew—too young, too blue-eyed, too stubbly. He squinted in confusion at the picture. Was there more than one Argent family?

Faintly disappointed, Stiles read on, intrigued in the story despite the blatant voyeuristic feel of it.

The next page taunted at a mystery. It read more like a full page gossip column than any type of investigative reporting. Instantly, there was a name he recognized—Deucalion Kain. The first of the naiad’s victims. 

But here, Matt named a different suspect. He pointed a finger at the Argents themselves. According to official reports, Gerard Argent, Allison’s dead grandfather, was tied to an attack on Deucalion Kain that left Deucalion blind and several people dead. Gerard had been a fugitive with warrants out for his arrest in several counties and states. Matt theorized that Gerard himself went back to finish the job that he started, even though the timelines didn’t quite match up.

Furthermore, he argued that the insular and strange Argent family were hiding the truth, even hiding an alive Gerard Argent under the noses of the law. That, Stiles thought, was just ludicrous. The Argents had a ton on their plate, what with Chris being mauled and all. Even if they wanted to, they wouldn’t have had the time or energy to manage faking Gerard’s death, would they?

Chris hadn’t just been attacked that day. He’d been savaged so badly, he lost his leg from the knee down. And they never found it again. That had happened only three days after Gerard was declared dead.

Stiles wrinkled his nose, scrolling down to the next page, skimming to the end. He glanced at the last picture, paused, then looked again, eyes riveted to the photo. 

The next picture was of a tall white man. He was getting on in years but he had attentive dark eyes and an easy, practiced smile. He wore a cardigan and a flat cap. Under the picture, bold white text asked the viewers a pointed question:

Loving Grandfather or Worst Murderer In Beacon Hills In Forty Years?

Feeling faint, Stiles leaned back in his chair, hard enough to creak. “Oh, fuck me,” Stiles whispered with feeling.

The man’s name was Gerard Argent.

-

???

She was happy with him. He figured things out. He was well onto the next phase of helping her fulfill her purpose. But instead of letting him sleep through the night, she bombarded him with a different memory—a hazy one lacking edges or clarity. It was this lack of focus that revealed more about her condition than Chris’ neatly written notes.

She/he/they were underwater. She was paralyzed, but her mind was not. She was transforming. She was watching. She was waiting. Her awareness divided not in one body of water, but in seventeen. 

Then Scott fell into one of them, crashing into a puddle elbow first. He bounced right off, tripped, feeling her. He looked back, eyes lightened with a bright pure gold, but then he was running again, like the brief encounter with a tainted smudge of what used to be a naiad wasn’t as concerning as the situation at hand.

This intrigued her. She lingered. He did too, as sentient and trapped as Peter Pan’s shadow.

A boy was trapped under the heel of another. The one standing, the boy in red wore the number 37 on his chest. His skin was turning green, eyes yellow. 

Abomination, her thoughts said. 

“No, Jackson,” Stiles retorted caustically, moving forward. She held him back with three pointed fingers. Under her will, his mouth slammed shut.

The boy on the floor was tall and pale with haunted eyes and a thin face—Isaac, Stiles told her. But she didn’t care. She didn’t have time for names. All she knew of him was wild blond hair, anger anger anger, and still untethered face. 

Another tall boy lingered back, under a tree, as dark as the other boy was pale. He was calmer, more focused, and more afraid for it. 

(Boyd, Stiles bleated. She still didn’t care.)

A monster approached them—seven feet tall and covered with coarse black fur. An alpha of its kind. But no, not Ennis, she told him. Not Ennis, who hunted, hurt more than he meant to, and felt bad about it. Not Ennis at all.

Ties hung on the teens like webs, like chains, like collars with the spikes pointed inward. All these ties belonged to the monster that approached. And the teens, those unwilling betas, despite their bravery, banded together. Even the abomination paused, stopping mid-transformation as something like a human will flared behind his faded eyes. 

The creature was most the alpha’s beta out of all of them, but three days alone with the monster was long enough to understand the ramifications of being his pet. 

“Kill him,” the alpha ordered.

With only the slightest bit of hesitance, the boy in red turned on the boy on the floor, yellow dripping claws extended. 

“Don’t,” Scott cried out. The abomination paused, watching Scott scramble forward. “Please.”

The abomination was the worst part of pack in a venomous body. It was all belongingness and need and purpose, and nothing else. It was a tool of a master, no more cognizant than a hatchet or a spade. And yet…

It stopped. It watched Scott. And the naiad watched them in turn, fascinated. 

Stiles still couldn’t move and he was nearly screaming with the frustration of it all. These were his class mates, these were his friends.

“Jackson,” Scott said quietly. Not seeing any reaction to this, Scott’s face crumbled. But he still continued, reaching out to the abomination. “You’re more than this, you know it.” The abomination stared at the hand blankly. “Jackson, please! Come back to us.”

Stiles looked over his shoulder, surprised to see the sharp featured, gray skinned naiad in all of her tainted, transforming glory. She was always too fast or too close or just behind him. In this moment, though, he could look at her. Her eyes were huge and black from corner to corner, eerie in their familiarity and yet… not. Because there was a person behind them.

And that person was watching Scott intently, her full focus on the only teen whose name she bothered to know.

Her fingers tightened on his shoulders. Her thoughts pressed once more than his. _More than purpose,_ she insisted. _More than biological design. More than the weapon that nature forged you to be._

Stiles turned back in time to see the abomination—Jackson freaking Whittemore—abandoning his order and taking Scott’s hand. On the part of Lydia’s ex, the gesture was more desperate than companionable, more arrogant than friendly—Jackson, as always, was looking out for himself. 

But in that moment, that one moment of compassion and empathy for an enemy, Scott radically altered the shape of the game board. Jackson was Scott’s now. And the others were quick to follow. Realizing he lost his sure thing, his perfect weapon, the alpha attacked.

The naiad pulled Stiles closer, pressing hands harder on his shoulders, her thoughts into his thoughts. The scene in front of him swirled into a vague fog, alarming him, but the conclusion of the scene wasn’t, in her mind, important. No matter how hard Scott just hit the trunk of a tree. No matter how easily Boyd’s shoulder snapped. No matter how quickly Isaac’s blood spilled and hit the earth.

They survived, but it was _how_ they survived that was interesting to her.

Only twice in her known history had someone been the alpha the people needed in spirit. Only twice in her history did nature rush up and give that alpha-in-deed the power that they’d earned through willpower alone. And as Scott’s power swelled, the monster’s power faded. Bonds that the unwilling betas fought snapped in half until the monster wasn’t facing the children he’d bit and was trying to get in line. He was facing a pack.

They weren’t strong enough to beat him—not those children. The forest would rise with the howl of the long standing alpha of the territory. ( _Talia_ , the naiad’s sung with sorrow and affection.) The monster would run as the rightful alpha took chase. The betas and alphas would hunt the monster down. 

And the naiad, what would she do? She would retreat before Talia could feel the faint burst of a dormant pack bond.

But no, she told him. They didn’t beat him that day. They didn’t have it in them. But that was okay. It wasn’t weakness. 

Sometimes, strength wasn’t just knowing you were right. Strength wasn’t just overcoming obstacles. Sometimes, strength wasn’t winning or losing. Sometimes, it wasn’t about force or endurance. Sometimes, it was just about opening up, reaching out.

Holding on. _Enduring._

“You should write a self-help book.”

-

June 2013

Stiles woke up, faintly annoyed and dissatisfied. He glared up at the ceiling until reality reasserted itself, then he glared up some more. He couldn’t believe he got a freaking pep talk from a potentially homicidal naiad when all she could converse in was images and distorted memories. 

In hindsight, though, he realized he needed it. Because everything suddenly got a whole lot worse.  
Just as her strengths bled into him, so did her weaknesses, and she was deteriorating fast. Stiles lost entire packets of time. There were so many days he really couldn’t recall. Tests he couldn’t remember. Projects with deadline that raced past him. Conversations he sat through, deaf and numb.

He never felt her influence as heavy as he did in those days. She clung to him, like a lopsided imp, draining him, never letting him forget she was there. He lost control of his powers a lot. He saw Gage everywhere now, and Erik too. They watched him with heavy eyes, both impartial and strangely judgmental.

Then one day he had an epiphany. He knew what she wanted him to do. 

But he was scared too. What if he was wrong? What if he was walking into a trap? In a moment of weakness, he called Scott. Then, standing in front of the window of his English classroom, he stared down at Scott lying on the phone to him, racing away from him to handle… what, exactly? Surely it wasn’t as important as dealing with a morally dubious water nymph and her quest for… something. 

Stiles needed backup, damnit. But, as usual, it seemed like he needed to schedule it three weeks in advance. Stiles wrecked that room quite a bit. 

Then he went to the Preserve that afternoon. Alone. He came out a few hours later, soaking wet and faintly sore, but also looser than he’d been since April. The clinging imp had left him. His powers stopped defying him. He slept for a whole ninety minute nap at his house without the barest hint of a nightmare.

And, for the briefest period of time, Stiles could not bring himself to care about the consequences of what he had just done. The relief was stronger than the worry—and the certainty—that Stiles was one hundred percent wrong and he’d just jumpstarted the apocalypse.

Fuck the world anyway.

-

Yawning into his hand, Stiles scratched idly away at one of his last assignments at his kitchen table. It was seven o’clock and the darkness was just starting to stream in, dimming the skies. He still had the edges of a pillow creased into his cheek from his long nap. 

Getting ready to leave for a night shift, his dad paused in the doorway. He poked his way around Stiles hopefully. When he saw what his son was doing, he let off a mega-wattage smile. Stiles smiled back wanly, letting his dad engage him in a conversation about school.

Despite everything, he hadn’t slid too far away from his ideal grades. In fact, his frankly completionist views towards school work near the beginning of the term meant that most of the damage of the last month was buffered by a cushion of extra credit.  
All was back to normal. 

Or was it? Stiles’ smile dropped when his dad went out the front door. He looked up at the calendar, eyes falling on another full moon circled in red. 

Stiles couldn’t drop a pervasive sense of imminent doom. He chewed on the end of his pen fretfully, focus narrowing on that one date—tomorrow. Then, unable to calm the restlessness in his limbs, he sprung from the table, grabbing his keys and heading for the door.

Stiles pulled out of his driveway with a squeal, abused wheels protesting the action. Preoccupied, he tore down the street. He hit a red light and sighed, irritated, tapping his thumbs against the wheel. He took a random left, aimless and anxiety and trying to calm down. But his mind wouldn’t stop working against him, spinning consequence after consequence in his general direction.  
In hindsight—and after that glorious ninety minute nap—he could hardly believe he went to that Cthullu pit by himself, but he wasn’t sure what else he could have done. He wasn’t sure how much more he could take. He’d been so close to breaking.

And yet… was this waiting any better?

Stiles rounded the lofty corner of a public park, eyes skimming the sidewalk briefly for pedestrians. He did a double take, eyes freezing on the lone figure just above it, slumped and sitting on the low fence that made the park’s border. 

The figure noticed Stiles about the same time Stiles noticed him, only the other was much more alarmed. 

Stiles pulled up next to the sidewalk. Adjusting his seat belt, he leaned over, pushing the passenger side open. “Get in.” The Jeep dipped with the added weight swinging into his car, but Stiles refused to look over, to do anything but stare straight ahead. “Where do you need to go?”

There was a long pause, then- “Home,” Scott croaked, looking exhausted. Stiles nodded once and took off.

Three red lights later, he could no longer hold his silence. “Got ditched in the woods again, huh?”

“Stiles, don’t even start.”

“Start what?” he snapped. “Start what, _Mr. I’m Out Of Town_?”

The car went quiet. Stiles found himself breathing heavily—too heavily. He forced himself to inhale slower, exhaling in a quiet burst.  
“Whatever. I don’t even care.” And then, purposely, trying to not be an ass, he said, “You don’t have to tell me. And, before. I was wrong to push.” He glanced over, flinching slightly when he realized Scott’s eyes were on him—had been on him the whole time. Stiles’ attention snapped back to the road. “Whatever,” he said again, knuckles turning white.

Nothing was said for two more intersections. Then, tentatively, Scott said, “That’s not yours, is it?”

Stiles looked over, following Scott’s gaze to the backseat. The sparse carpet was soaking wet, even after four hours of summer heat. On top of it was dripping, hastily tossed scuba gear.

“Nah. Not mine. It belongs to a friend of a friend of Danny's.”

Scott’s eyes moved to Stiles’ face again. “New hobbies are nice,” he said awkwardly, and it felt like every terrible conversation he had with a stranger ever. Except this wasn’t his neighbor’s niece or his partner in biology class. This was his best friend, and that? That ached.

“Right,” Stiles said, focusing on Scott’s words. “Hobby.” 

If he had his way, he’d never go near water again. He remembered trudging to the nemeton, the scuba gear heavy on his shoulder. He remembered donning the ill-fitting wet suit and dropping below the water with only a Google article and recklessness guiding him. Black ooze drifting lazily to him, he’d kicked his way awkwardly to the bottom in equipment he wasn’t used to. It wasn’t that deep—seven feet at most. But that didn’t make him feel any better in the moment, when any movement in his peripheral was a clawed hand, a grasping limb. A trap.

Scott’s nose was wrinkled. “You smell like pond water.” 

Stiles frowned at that, then delicately sniffed his shoulder. He’d taken a thorough shower… hadn’t he? He’d used up two bottles of shampoo, scrubbing his skin red in the process. 

“Yeah, well, you smell like lies,” Stiles snapped, disliking this scrutiny. “It has this distinct odor of bullshit.” 

Scott flinched, his expression shuttering. “I thought you said you didn’t care.”

“I do!” Stiles retorted, bristling. “I do and I always will and I can’t turn it off-”

“I’m not pushing you out!” Scott burst out. “It’s just. Complicated.”

“Awesome,” Stiles said with a bitter laugh. “You too, huh?”

Scott winced at the reminder, knowing how Derek broke up with him, but he didn’t take the bait. “Look, I lied. I’ve lied a lot, more than just today. But when you called me, there was someone I needed to look for. Someone who shouldn’t be here, but is.”

“Someone more important than me?”

“Someone more _dangerous_ than you.” 

Stiles thought about Lydia and her black eyed obedience, about scraping his way into Peter’s mind. Stiles thought about his dad and snorted. “Sure. Whatever.”

“That answer again, huh?”

“Whatever,” Stiles said again.

“Whatever,” Scott snapped mockingly, visibly bristling. 

Moodily, they looked anywhere but at each other. They both sat there through a red light, the air buzzing with their respective tempers. They stayed quiet through the green light, down the street, and right up to Scott’s house. 

Stiles pulled into a jerky stop in Scott’s driveway, then looked at him expectantly. 

Scott scowled at him, then at himself, tugging his seat belt off. “Once everything is safer, I'll tell you everything you need to know.” This was grumbled out grudgingly, sharp edged but with the hint of a plea.

“What makes you think I don't need to know it now?” 

Scott was shaking his head before Stiles even finished. “You don’t get it, I don’t want you to get involved with this. It’s my fa- problem.” A thread of desperation wove through his thoughts, but Stiles didn’t pay it any mind.

“Yeah, yours and half of the town’s, apparently,” Stiles commented sarcastically.

Scott’s face fell. His eyes dropped down to his knees. “Think what you want to think, Stiles,” he replied dully, pushing open the passenger door. “You always do.”

A warning bell went off in Stiles’ mind. He caught Scott’s arm before he got out, more reflex than strategy. Once he had it, he stopped, his mind going off in a million different directions—his own dissatisfaction, Scott’s wary back glance, the tensing of muscles bunching up under his hand, the genuine unhappiness that cloaked over both of their thoughts.

Stiles didn’t want it to end like this. His hand slowly slid off Scott’s arm. His voice came out tight and a little choked: “Dude, I…”  
Scott stared back at him, frown easing faintly at whatever Stiles was broadcasting. But even Stiles couldn’t figure out what to say, how to verbalize the feeling burbling in his chest. How much he still wanted to be angry, and righteously so, but so much of him still… still wanted…

Still wanted Scott to be his friend.

Stiles finally blurted out, “You know I love you, right?” 

Scott’s face slackened with surprise. After a beat, his mouth curved slightly, his eyes creasing. “I wondered sometimes,” he admitted. The serious look in his eyes belied the faint joke he was trying to force in his voice.

Humor was just as much of a distancing tool as cruelty. Stiles would know. He nodded sharply and pulled back, clearing his throat.  
“Well… whatever you're dealing with... come out on the other end of it, okay? Whatever it is.” 

Sobering, Scott slid out of the car, slamming the door behind him. He turned, leaning through the open window. “I will. And when I do, I’m going to tell you everything.” His eyes were burning with the desire to make Stiles believe him. 

Stiles hung his head, teeth tightening. Biting at his chest was a snotty comment about how he’d been receiving that promise since, oh yeah, _sophomore year of high school._ But Stiles looked up then—really looked, forcing himself to see.

Scott’s hair was no longer swooping and floppy, like a puppy’s curls. Instead, it was short, cropped close to his head, almost military short. It only highlighted the thinner lines of his best friend’s face, drawing neon flashing arrows to the lines under his eyes. He was well built, but in a different way than lacrosse trained him to be—not that he’d been on the team since 2011. Instead, he was rangy, harshly muscular in some places and too thin in others. 

And, in the fading light of the day, it was all too clear that his was a mouth that had seen fewer and fewer smile and excuses to laugh these last few years. How could Stiles have missed this? Even now, Scott held himself differently, like the deputies who came in from active duty overseas sometimes—sharp eyed and stern and waiting for the next bad thing to round the corner. 

“Looking forward to it,” Stiles said instead. It wasn’t a lie. He even forced a smile, which slid from fake to genuine when Scott lit up hopefully, the brief happiness chasing away the shadows in his eyes. 

Waving off a thanks, he watched Scott go, loosely hugging his steering wheel. He followed Scott up and into his house with only his eyes, keeping tabs on Scott until his friend was completely out of sight. 

Then, and only then, did he let his forehead rest on the wheel. He let out a gasping breath, feeling worse that he had at the pond where he had stood, holding up flopping ill-fitting scuba gear, feeling like he was ten different types of ridiculous. 

“ _I get it_ ,” he’d told the water. “ _You want something. But, listen. You gotta take these powers away from me. I don’t care what contract you think we’re under them. I’m- I'm not meant to have them, I'm... I'm going to hurt someone. I have hurt people and I…_ ” He’d stopped, alone in the woods under a blazing afternoon sun. “ _I can’t be that person anymore._ ” 

Blinking, Stiles lifted his head from the steering wheel. He held his hand in front of him, monitoring the shake of it. His eyes were burning, watering from the ache. He stretched out his hand abruptly, focusing on a trash can in front of him. 

It flew out under an invisible force, hitting the back of an SUV.

Heart crashing, Stiles curled his fingers back into his palm. The Gift was not gone. He thought going to Lake Charity was enough. He’d done what he thought she wanted, but she wasn’t through with him yet. And he was terrified that she was going to drive him into the grave before she was through.

He wallowed for several minutes longer before slowly perking up, a tentative thought taking root. It was a daring thought. It was uncharacteristic too, which was half of its appeal. And the longer he sat there, the more and more attractive it became until it was the only thought taking up his whole mind. His last request. His final will and testament. 

If he was going to die, wasn’t the only decent thing to do was make his peace with the people around him?

-

Galvanized, and feeling like he was doing the right thing for the first time in a long while, Stiles got busy immediately. He sent an apologetic text to Scott right then and there. He called Heather on the way back up the street. He got her voicemail twice. Finally, he gave up and left her a long winded message where he said a lot but communicated nothing. 

“…and it’s complicated, but you’re right. You’ve always been right. Don’t hate me, okay?” He dropped his phone on the seat next to him, trying not to second guess himself too much. 

He drove halfway to Lydia’s house before chickening out and doing a u-turn. He’d done enough to Lydia. The very least he could do was spare her his apology. Especially when he couldn’t explain what he’d done in the first place without instantaneously winning himself a pillow in Eichen House.

His dad would be last, he decided. If only to give himself time to think over his peacemaking with his dad. His dad was too smart. Stiles would have to be careful. He’d held a lot of pent up negativity towards him, which his dad would have to be blind not to pick up on. His dad had been as much of a gatekeeper as anyone else, judging by his thoughts that one night. 

But if he just up and apologized, his dad would dig and assume the worst. The last thing Stiles wanted was his dad thinking he was suicidal when he was just being practical. The best plan he had so far was to break something. But what? It had to be something non-essential but worth noting. The TV, maybe? He didn’t want to piss off his dad too much!

But after he did break something, he’d have the freedom to spend the rest of the night plying his dad with steak and apologizing over and over, knowing that the guilt didn’t lie with what he did, but rather what he intended to do. And that… appealed to Stiles. It really did.

He hoped that it looked like an accident, his death. _Young White Male Falls Afoul Of Nature._ At this time in the year, he wouldn’t even get a page in the yearbook, which was better for everyone involved. Ten, twenty years down the road, Scott and Heather and Lydia and the rest would only remember him as a friend they used to have—a friend who acted weird for a while before dying in an unexpected accident. Yeah. He could deal with that.

Using his phone’s voice app, he dictated a couple of half-thought out letters to people: Harris for the duck thing, that one neighbor he egged two years ago, the principal for the second duck thing, the owner of the SUV he’d just bashed with his mind powers. He even had a line or two for Melissa, who he’d been giving a cold shoulder to for the last year. It was tucked into a vague ramble about the second duck thing (which was really just the first duck thing, continued). 

Driving really inspired his apologetic spirit. But by the time he realized he forgot someone in this, it was already night. The name popped into his head in middle of an admiring spiel about Danny. He slammed his brakes so hard, he almost caused an accident.

This was not the sort of person who’d accept a written apology either. Swearing (and waving off the irate snarling of the car behind him), Stiles turned the car around and headed down the dark road.

It took him twenty minutes to reach the Hale house in the woods. Stiles parked crookedly under a tree. When he got out of the Jeep, he landed in a pile of crunchy dead leaves. He shook his shoes clean, running an agitated hand through his hair. Grabbing his keys, he closed the door and started a quick jog around the house to the front porch of the looming three story building above him.

His feet hit treated wood a few seconds later. He looked up at the door and stopped, wavering on the bottom step.  
Derek towered above him, glowering. He made an impressive figure just then—body shrouded by darkness, but gently outlined by the shine from the golden porch light. Sharp green eyes glinted down at Stiles, narrow and direct. He wore a long sleeved shirt and jeans, but his toes were distractingly bare. His arms were crossed over his chest. 

Stiles settled back on his heels. The words snapped out of his throat, unbidden. “Are you mad at me?” 

He’d had a whole thing he was going to say. It was beautiful, well thought out. It was _mature_ , even. But at the slightest hint of aggression, he lost all sense of it, his mind flipping from conciliatory to ‘come at me, bro’ in under two seconds flat. Such was the effect Derek had on him still. Even now. Years after the point where Derek’s opinion even mattered.

Exhaling heavily, Derek looked abruptly to the left of Stiles. His jawline jumped slightly. “Not mad, just... frustrated. I expected you here a month ago.” 

Stiles squinted up at him suspiciously. He’d had a rough couple of weeks, sure, but he’d remember if Derek had extended him an invitation, right? But the sharp edges of his annoyance evened out as Derek rolled his eyes, shifting from foot to foot. 

“She's not here right now,” Derek replied, stone-facing it. “She said she'd be back in two days. If you can just wait-”

“Wait for what?” Stiles asked automatically. He wasn’t even paying attention anymore. Derek was so gruff… and _pretty_. And no matter what haunted the path ahead or lurked in the path behind, his whole world… narrowed. Like it used to.

Like when it was just him and Derek. And it didn’t- he wasn’t-

He wasn’t that kid anymore, and yet- 

“Wait for my mother.” Derek passively watched as Stiles came up the last few steps. He didn’t move, but his eyes changed, pupils widening. He took in a deep breath, mouth parted, and that… 

That made something click in Stiles’ head. It all came together like pieces of a puzzle. It made sense. 

The way he still got all worked up over an ex. The way Derek’s mind went all hazy and soft around the edges when they spoke longer than a minute. The way Stiles’ heart started racing at even the hint of this one Hale and the way that, once Derek allowed himself to start looking, he never _stopped_.

Then, finally, what Derek was trying to say about his mother clicked as well. He shook his head. 

“Derek, I'm not here for your mother,” he whispered, exasperated. Then he tipped up the last inches of space between them, meeting Derek’s lips with his own. 

-

And… nothing. Well, not nothing.

After all, there was a hand on Stiles’ chest. There was a hand and it pressed him back ever so slightly. Stiles froze, mind spiraling back into doubt, recalibrating all of his careful conclusions about Derek’s actions so far. Blinking rapidly, Stiles settled back on his heels on that step, nodding once. He shoved down the magnesium burst of humiliation, because, really, this was his fault.  
This was him reading too deeply into kindness. This was him assuming that past predicted future, and he… he knew better, you know? Just because someone's body language says yes doesn't mean anything. 

But that didn’t mean he didn’t want to run away and shove his head in a bucket of sand.

He didn’t get that far. He didn’t even get to drop down to the step below him, because the second he made a move to, Derek caught his elbow, drawing Stiles close. His breathing had visibly changed, and his surface thoughts were all a scramble, hot and cold and soft and desperate-

Before Stiles could think to untangle all those thoughts, Derek was kissing him _back_. Where Stiles’ kiss had been gentle, almost pre-school in its chasteness, Derek’s was wild, dirty, and hard. He kissed like he thought Stiles was going to run, and he’d have to _chase_ , but there was nothing Stiles wanted to do less in the whole wide world.

You still _like_ me, Stiles thought in awe. He instantly curled his arms around Derek’s neck, standing on his toes—damn step—and was rapidly overwhelmed by the surge of enthusiasm this inspired in Derek—Derek, whose strong fingers pressed into his chest.

But they felt less and less like a dismissal and more and more like a futile attempt to ground himself. 

They parted a moment later, Stiles with a huge gasp, sucking in air. He settled back on his heels with a hard thump, but didn’t go anywhere, transfixed. Stunned. Apprehension and hope were mashed together in his head like paste, and it would only take one wrong word for him to run like hell out of there.

They stood like that together, staring at each other from inches away. Derek’s pupils were huge and Stiles’ lips stung with every heated breath that hit them. Stiles’ arms, still encircled loosely around Derek’s shoulders, tightened slightly. There was a corresponding hitch in Derek’s throat and a strange twitch in his fingers, but he still looked at Stiles like Stiles was the beginning and ending of his every thought. 

Stiles could test that hypothesis now, if he wanted. But even an accidental mind read didn’t seem like it was going to happen. After weeks and weeks of bouncing up and down like a yo-yo, his powers were actually… calm. 

“Don’t leave,” Derek whispered finally, voice low and raw. And then, as a seemingly unrelated comment, he said, “Nobody’s here.”

Stiles just stared up at him, mute, barely able to piece that together, and how that related to the quelling hand on his chest, when that hand suddenly tightened, fisting in his shirt. It yanked him up that last step, pulling him into the house. Derek released him almost instantly, but there was no point to it, really. Stiles still tripped after him willingly, body buzzing. 

He swung the front door behind him, gratefully thudding against it. Derek turned at the noise, drawn to it. 

“Not here,” Derek said huskily, crowding him up against the surface anyway. He bent his head into Stiles’ neck, inhaling deeply. “Everyone comes through here.” 

Stiles clutched onto his waist, balling his hands in Derek’s shirt. He swallowed past his dry throat. “You’re, uh”—his voice went up two octaves when Derek’s teeth found a patch of skin—“You’re gonna have to get me off if you want to move.” He blinked twice. “Get… get off me, I mean. Yeah.”

Great job, Stilinski. A+ on your game.

In front of him, Derek snorted inelegantly, his shoulders shaking. “Yeah.” He pulled away slightly, his eyes heavy lidded and green. “Yeah, okay.”

Fingers circling Stiles’ wrist, Derek tugged him lightly in the direction he wanted Stiles to go, but released him, turning around. He headed straight for the stairs, pausing just long enough to pull his shift off, revealing shifting back muscles and a stark spiraling tattoo. 

If Stiles wasn’t careful, he was going to slip in a puddle of his own drool. And possibly take out an eye, he reckoned when he yanked off his own long plaid shirt, nearly strangling himself in the process when he forewent the buttons. 

Determined, Stiles leapt after Derek, pulling off his t-shirt as well. He caught up with him outside the familiar door of Derek’s bedroom, pausing to nuzzle the warm skin between his shoulder blades when Derek stopped to push the door open. Then he nipped at the skin over Derek’s spine and ducked under his arm and into the dark room.

“First!” Stiles declared, rolling up his shirt and snapping it like a whip at the ground. 

“You would be that guy,” was Derek’s only response.

Stiles turned, smirking. His smile fell quickly though. “I didn’t come here for a booty call,” he said finally, twisting the fabric in his hands. Purposefully, he let his shirts fall to the floor. “But my body is ready.” 

Derek rolled his eyes. “This is not a booty call,” he replied, faintly exasperated. He closed the space between them in slow, easy steps. “Stay here tonight. With me.”

Stiles looked back at him steadily. There was a tickling sensation at the back of his head, like there was something he needed to remember. But it seemed so far off, so unimportant, especially with Derek right there. Right in front of him. Locking eyes with him, chin tipped down and expression more open than Stiles ever remembered.

His blood pounded through his head when Derek reached out, fingers curling around his wrist again. This time, he drew mindless little patterns on it with his thumbs, pale eyes never leaving his.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, words swallowed by a sharp inhalation. “Okay.”

Derek smiled briefly, the expression more apparent in his eyes than his mouth. Then he swayed closer, attention dropping to Stiles’ mouth.

Stiles met him halfway, kissing him again. It wasn’t as harsh or desperate as the first one on the steps, but it was nice. Calmer. Slower. Like they had all the time in the world. And in that moment, it didn’t even seem like a lie.

“I need-” Derek said between kisses. “-to check the house first.” Stiles muttered something uncharitable, having been sneakily moving them over to Derek’s bed. Although his eyes were closed, Derek smirked widely at that, turning his face into Stiles’ hand. His stubble tickled Stiles’ palm. 

“I’ll be right back,” he promised, pressing the softest kiss on the heel of it. “So you can…” His sentence ended in a hitch of a sigh as he leaned forward, pressing the rest into Stiles’ mouth. “…get comfortable.” 

Derek clearly was one who took his house sitting chore seriously, periodically murmuring protests even as his fingernails scraped deliciously over the small of Stiles’ back or his thigh pressed slowly between Stiles’ own. 

He had a hard time detaching from Stiles. But eventually, he pulled free, repeating his request for Stiles to get settled. Then he practically ran out of the room, which was charming as it was frustrating.

It left Stiles alone in the dark with only the light of the moon through the window to guide him.

First thing he did was flip on the lights—none of that stumbling around in the shadows nonsense. The sharp blaze of Derek’s light burned into his eyes briefly, bringing in a world of solid concrete demands and consequences, a stark difference from the whirl of mangled hormones and half-completed thoughts that flitted off in the distance every time Derek turned his weighty focus on him.

Damn. Stiles was trembling. He did a quick inventory of himself; he was a _mess_. His mouth stung in a mild but pleasant way. His heart was racing and his skin was heated—his chest alone was a splotch of uneven red, so he couldn’t even imagine what his face looked like. 

He was still so keyed up too, feeling as if Derek had left him high and dry. He made the mistake of touching where Derek touched him. He immediately grinded the heel of his palm into his crotch when his hips did an involuntary hitch. It was bad enough to go off prematurely, it was worse to do it when the other person wasn’t even in the room. 

Stiles slapped his cheeks twice and stuck his head out the window, gulping in the cool night air. It didn’t have to be about sex, he figured. Derek wouldn’t push, unlike others. So sex didn’t have to happen tonight.

Except he very much wanted it to, didn’t he? With no real guarantee he was going to survive the naiad, was it really so bad to trust in this, even if only for tonight?

No, he decided. Determined, he kicked off his shoes and then, after a moment of debate, pulled off his socks, looking around the room as he did.

Get comfortable, Derek said. Stiles was gonna get so goddamn comfortable, Derek would need to pry his naked ass up with a spatula. 

Should he strike a casual pose as Derek came in? Should he wait to bend over until Derek was in the room? Should he fling himself across the mattress and hope for the best? The possibilities were endless. He scoured over the room for ideas. He rarely had so much time to- 

Stiles stopped in the middle of unbuckling his belt, catching onto a trend. Task abandoned, he padded silently on bare feet over to the wall and took in the room as a whole and tried to decipher what it meant.

This was a familiar place to Stiles. He might not have been invited back when they were dating, but he’d still spent hours sprawled across these floors, being re-taught something he knew but didn’t quite care to remember. 

The big bed was in the middle of the room, like a statement. An understated desk was tucked in the corner, covered in spirals and half-inch pencils. The window he’d just been in sat right above all that, a cool wind ruffling pages. The rug was new—replaced. And right by the door was a shelf heavy with awards, still the same as ever. 

And yet, it was that thing that pinged Stiles’ radar, nothing else. He frowned, remembering when a cranky teenage Derek swiping his trophies out of Stiles’ hand when his bored student staged a play. He’d obsessively polished Stiles’ fingerprints from them, ignoring the booing that went on just behind his back. Then Stiles would get a lecture about respecting people’s property. But now…

Stiles stroked over one award with a pinky. A couple years later, these precious items had a thin layer of dust—a strange change, an odd shift in priorities.

And now that he was looking, the change was written all over the room—teenage posters, ripped down. Music CDs, gone. Trading memorabilia of sports celebrities, missing—boxed up somewhere, maybe. It was like all personality had left the room. All hobbies, all dreams went with it.

The only thing that had been left relatively intact and decently kept was the twin book shelves. They were even more burdened, books spilling out into untidy piles. 

There was one picture left in the room, clean, next to the bed, and facing away from Stiles. It was on the nightstand and the placement of it was so unbelievably stereotypical. Snorting, Stiles approached it, wondering if it was a picture of his mom or his whole family or his own graduation—the giant nerd was valedictorian, for crying out loud-

Stiles nudged the frame around and froze. 

It was…

It was not what he expected. For many reasons. It was years old, for starters. AND it had no right to be in a frame. It was two photo booth strips from the summer fair, meant to be taken and tossed. Just ‘cause-

Just ‘cause he still had _his_ didn’t mean he expected Derek to keep his own.

Stiles traced a light finger over a familiar upturned nose. He couldn’t believe how young he looked—round face, hair cropped close to his head and yet somehow still in disarray. Next to him, Derek sat in his red basketball jersey. He was looser than he was now, but infinitely more polished than the fifteen year old next to him, who had a piece of cotton candy visibly stuck to his left cheek. Stiles raised his eyebrows at his younger self’s increasingly exaggerated faces across the panels. Derek’s only contribution to the picture was different incarnations of that smirk Stiles used to hate. 

But the last picture was different. Stiles’d gotten distracted by the machine and was leaning forward, his right eye close to the camera, pupil tight from the flash. Stiles vaguely remembered thrashing back, instantly claiming blindness, but the picture... He hadn’t looked at his own copy in years. He didn’t remember this at all. Because if he had… 

If he had, maybe things would have been different. Maybe he wouldn’t have bought the way things had ended between them, so disastrous and abrupt.

Behind Stiles, Derek’s smile had dimmed significantly. His focus, for once, wasn’t on the lens of the camera, but rather on the back of Stiles’ head. The look on his face was soft and affectionate, and singularly more revealing than anything Derek had ever said out loud. 

He looked at Stiles like Stiles was his whole world.

"Hey."

Stiles flinched. He slapped the photo face down, even though that was a thousand times more conscious. Then he turned around, trying to look casual. "Hey! Hey." Stiles swung his gaze to the floor, clearing his throat. 

There was a long pause, an awkwardness of his own creation. Stiles rubbed the back of his neck and swallowed, staring at the floor and trying not to bring attention to the fact that he'd been snooping around the one intimate and vulnerable thing in Derek's sterile room. He glanced up through his eyelashes.

Derek raised his eyebrows at him. Then he closed the door, shortening the distance between them in three easy steps. Pointedly, Derek reached around him and set the picture up right again. Then, with the same hand, he tipped up Stiles’ chin and kissed him into pliancy.

Moments later, Stiles forgot all about it, as content as a cat laying in a patch of sun. 

"How's the perimeter there, soldier?" he quipped. He slipped his fingers under Derek’s waistband, tracing along the delicate skin.

"Secure, sir." Derek’s voice was low and soft, and his nose was buried in Stiles’ thought. "Solid, secure, safe." He punctuated those three words with nips along Stiles’ jaw. Big, strong hands moved between them, curling—maybe on his own belt, maybe on Stiles’. Either way, Stiles jumped, startled.

Derek stilled. He pulled back, expression neutral. "Are you nervous?" The wolf in his head, perpetually noisy and grumbling, stilled at this too, as if listening for Stiles’ answer. 

Stiles shook his head, forcing himself to maintain a level one. "Nah. I do this every day." His heart thundered with the lie.

Derek’s eyebrows popped up, challenging. "Still a virgin, huh?"

"Pfft, I'm not a virgin. I just-" His bravado slipped and his eyebrows lowered. "We never-"

In the end, Stiles flapped a hand to encompass all he was talking about, looking up at Derek hopefully, needing him to understand. The kissing and the touching and the room were familiar. This was rapidly heading to a place where Stiles had no prior knowledge of, not with Derek. 

Miraculously, Derek understood. "That was then. This is now.” He pulled Stiles’ arms over his shoulders, until they were tight up against each other—chest to chest, nose to nose. Stiles’ heart galloped. 

Derek leaned in, voice dropping to a whisper. “When you want to stop, just say when."

Stiles smirked against his mouth. Challenge accepted.

-

Stiles shot up out of bed, pressure and force of his name ringing in his ears. A sense of unreality distorted his thoughts, turning familiar structures to unfamiliar foes, but only until he placed where he was.

Derek’s house. Derek’s room. Derek’s bed.

Stiles kicked his feet out of the sheets, pressing them to the floor. He sat there for the longest moment, trying gather his thoughts—where he was, when he was, who he was. The naiad messed with it all. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, thinking.

It was Saturday morning—ten o’clock, judging by the analog clock. Derek’s water pipes complained grumpily and there was the faintest allure of coffee in the air. If Stiles strained, he could hear water hitting the ground like rain all around Derek, and, as much as he loved the taste of coffee, that was the biggest temptation right there.

After last night, he knew Derek wouldn’t turn him away if he just… walked in. Shared some water. It was a drought, after all.  
But still, he sat. Because someone said his name, and it sure as hell wasn’t Derek. And that wasn’t the only thing, was it? There had been this… buzzing anticipation on the hike with the WWEC, right before the naiad dragged him into the puddle. That same anticipation was here now, vibrating like a hive of bees under his skin. Something was afoot. 

Stiles looked down at his boxers, plucking at his waistband. He got a sudden flash of last night—playful kicks as fingers dragged boxers up thighs. Failing kisses bumping up against wide smiles. Hands grasping, mouths softening, noses brushing under the protective covering of a sheet blocking out the world. And then, belated, he remembered the original reason he had for driving out to the Hale house in the woods.

He’d meant to be kind. To make his peace. Instead, Derek had been angry at him, whatever he said, and Stiles couldn’t back down from that challenge. Some words became a kiss became more kisses… and now this.

This perfect, flawed, wonderful thing. Instead of ending things well, he started something new, and he couldn’t help but feel as if… he mis-stepped somewhere.

He wondered if he should have been cruel, ended all hint of something with harsh words and left Derek the way he found him—angry at the thought of Stiles. Worse than he was, maybe, so angry at the thought of Stiles that Stiles’ probable death would provoke only a sense of _good riddance_. 

Stiles had it in him to destroy things. He had it in him to destroy what little had survived of their high school romance, and, even better, he’d be doing it for a semi-good reason.

But, see, Derek did that once, and even implied that he’d had good reasons too. But it wrecked Stiles. Even now, just thinking about it made his stomach twist. 

Derek was afraid of something, that was clear. Something about the secrets he kept, something about his family, and definitely something about Peter and what he did to Erik. And, in the end, he made unilateral decision about the direction of their relationship without getting even a speck of Stiles' input. 

Stiles wouldn't—couldn’t—do the same. Not even for a good reason. 

Stiles got dressed quickly, getting ready to leave. He paused a moment, eyeing Derek’s spirals speculatively. Skimming through one, he found a blank page and tore a piece of paper from it. He grabbed a pen too.

A minute later, he went back to Derek’s bed and that all too revealing picture, taking it apart quickly. He flattened his note across it, blocking the silly image and leaving only the last one visible. Then he put the frame back together, somehow cleansed by the whole experience. 

He’d wasted so much time hating Derek, thinking the worst of him, when the truth of Derek’s feelings were right there in that one picture. And now, so were Stiles’.

Red words scrawled across the slip of paper. _I will love you for the rest of my life. SS._

However long or short that may be, he thought darkly. Nevertheless, the message satisfied him. He looked at it for a moment. Then his eyes widened in distress. 

Five minutes later, the frame was reassembled and put back on the table with a thunk. In tiny writing under the rest, he put _STILES, not Nazi Germany secret police, omg._

Stiles vibrated in place, staring at it. Then he shook his head sharply. He was stalling.

He needed to go.  
-


	7. Chapter 7

June 2013

Hours later, the birds were chirping cheerfully above him. The sun shone brightly and here wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. To all who were outside that day, the weather was perfect—a head nod towards the great summer to come.

To Stiles, it was hateful. Too bright. And _hot._ Though, to be fair, Stiles had many justifiable reasons for his grumpiness.

It was about three pm when he headed back to town, having trekked into the woods for nothing. He couldn't get to the tree at all, no matter what route he tried. And all the while, the buzzing got louder. The pounding pressure in his head increased, and the dread… 

Oh, it only got worse. And the shittiest part of it all was how rudder-less he felt, without direction and stranded at sea. The naiad got his attention alright. But now that she had it, she was doing jack shit about it, and that was. Pissing. Him. Off. 

So around two-thirty, he’d called it quits and headed back home. His mind still tossing around naiad motivations, he parked by the sidewalk outside his house before vaulting himself out of the driver side. 

It was there that he realized that she didn’t want him to go in the woods at all; there was a massive wolf on Stiles’ front lawn.  
Looking left and right to his neighbors, Stiles hesitated before closing the car door. He approached the wolf slowly. It was beautiful, gray and black and brown all over—and it was certainly not that cub-ish puppy Stiles saw before. Not with that large ribcage or those long legs or those eerily glowing blue eyes.

The way it looked at Stiles made the hair on his neck stand on end, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Now that Stiles was closer, he saw that it was wet, wet like Gage was the few times he saw her. Its fur was smeared with black tar. 

Well, that explained why Mrs. Bradshaw’s overly territorial Chihuahua wasn’t barking up a storm...

Stiles shoved his hands deep into his pockets, a cautious five feet away. “So,” he said, swallowing harshly. “Who are you wearing now? Hm? Erik, maybe?”

One of the wolf’s ears flicked at that. After eyeing him dully for a moment, it turned and rounded the corner of Stiles’ house, disappearing behind some trashcans. 

Stiles followed it, scanning the ground. There was nothing there, no hint of his furry visitor. Not even paw prints.

He paused when the side garage door creaked open, the chain lock still gently swinging under the force of someone pulling it free from the inside. Stiles winced, adrenaline surging at the sight. Nevertheless, he crept in, using his phone to nudge open the door, expecting the worst—not that he could define what that even was.

The swish of a bristly tail took him out of the garage and into the center room of his house. At that point, the wolf vanished, leaving Stiles standing there, frozen and listening to silence.

His home was, in that moment, entirely unfamiliar. Strange. Creepy. Darkness surrounded him on all sides and he couldn’t help but feel… eyes on him. Many, many eyes.

He could take no comfort in the persistent ticks of the clock or the flickering light bulbs. He couldn’t even breathe in and trust the scent of his house to bring him back to better memories—the air was tart now, his father’s cologne gone under the taint of mud and pond water, the same smell in his car. 

But it shouldn’t—couldn’t—be here as well. His first round of showering involved a lengthy and frigid session with a hose outside.

“Hello?” he called out, voice shaking. The silence of death met him. Then, suddenly-

Something shattered with all the force of a gunshot. Stiles jumped, heart leaping up his throat, then he snapped him back until he hit a wall. He flinched when something broke again and again—five times total. 

Then everything went quiet. But it was the sort of quiet that came with more eyes and more anticipation. The hair on Stiles’ arm stood straight up and he broke out into a cold sweat. He shivered, folding in on himself under the pressure of a sound that was more sensation than noise. It pounded behind him like a great heartbeat, breathing down his neck. 

The naiad wanted him to do something that morning, that much was clear. But she hadn’t wanted him at the tree again. She wanted him back at his house, but he was no longer certain he wanted to see what was behind door number two. But he had no choice. She had him here for a reason. He had to try and find what broke.

Legs shaking, he pushed away from the wall, walking as if he expected something to spring at him at any moment. 

He did a quick inventory: Dishes, intact. Windows, one piece. Glass table, still chipped from that ill advised maneuver with a Wiimote. Knickknacks, dusty but complete.

Stiles scratched his head, confused. Where else was there-

“Glass,” he blurted out suddenly. He spun and headed for the stairs. 

Up and down the walls bracketing the stair were many years of pictures—him, his dad. His mom and her family. His dad and his. A rare few with all three of them together, with a Stiles too young to understand how precious those moments would become. There was a picture of him on the lacrosse team—by the skin of his teeth! He’d ended that nonsense soon enough. There were eight of him and Scott alone.

And in the mass of pictures, there were five pictures broken, spider web fractures there as if by a blow from a tiny but precise hammer.

Annoyance seeped through the fear. Most of these photos had been hanging up since the first time his mother picked up a hammer and nails and scrutinized the wall as if it was a new canvas. The idea of the naiad violating that last piece of his mom, even to just send him a message was…

…was…

Oh God. His eyes darted from picture to broken picture, picking up the pattern. He dropped down a step, breath hitching hard in his chest.

It wasn’t a message. It was a warning.

Every piece of glass was broken over his dad's face. 

-

Stiles left the car running in the parking lot. He tripped out of his seat, his illegal parking job, and ran towards the station. He skidded forward, ducking and weaving through a line of cruisers, trying to find his dad's. 

He identified Tara’s instantly, her fraying BHHS lanyard hanging from the rearview mirror. Bob’s was next to hers, evidence of his severe caffeine addiction visible in the way of crushed Rockstar cans in the passenger foot well. The rookie had a giant bag of trail mix on his dashboard and Lawrence’s front seat was inexplicably covered with glitter.

His dad’s cruiser was gone. 

“Fuck,” Stiles said with feeling. Then he charged into the station, confident that between him and 7 of the most hardworking people in the world, they’d find his dad.

“What?” he demanded two minutes later, bristling. Naturally, Stiles was stonewalled by the rookie. 

“You can't file a missing person's report,” repeated the deputy, brow furrowed. He had bright eyes in a boyishly young face, but there was a firmness threaded through him that spoke of his time in the military. 

His name tag said J. Parrish. 

“He's only been gone for thirty minutes,” Parrish explained further. “And there’s no evidence of him being anywhere but on the clock.”

“Okay,” Stiles said testily, trying to figure out a way around this. Cops or no cops, maybe he could intercept his dad somehow. “Then where did he go?

Parrish’s forehead crinkled further. “That’s police business.”

Stiles growled at this, swinging away from Parrish momentarily. Then he turned back to him. Irritated with the red tape that was human dialogue all of a sudden, he pressed forward mentally, going level 2 without any consideration for the consequences. 

But, instead of thoughts, he got a brain full of a great screaming hawk and the sensation of flames licking at his face. If pushing too far with a Hale felt like running into a wall, then this felt like running into a wall that was running at you at the same time. And that wall was on _fire_. 

Wincing in pain, Stiles staggered back, sweating and feeling distinctly singed. He tipped back on his heels and would have fallen, if Parrish had not caught his elbow. 

Stiles was ushered to a seated area where Parrish barked out questions about his blood sugar levels. Under that kind of scrutiny, he had to admit he hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Within minutes, he had two sodas, a water, half of a salad, and a familiar pack of trail mix in front of him. 

He mostly ignored that, cradling his aching head in his hands. In the doorway, various deputies looked in at him, then looked at each other. Their thoughts were like sandpaper directly on his brain. Grimacing through it, Stiles dialed back to a level 1, mopping up the resulting nosebleed quickly before it drew any attention.

“I need to find my dad,” he croaked to the peeping toms. Stiles felt like the room was closing in around him and there was no way out.

The deputies were all thumbs at this—no response. But their interactions with each other were telling. Parrish pulled Lawrence aside, eyebrows winging up. They kept looking at Stiles. He might have only been at level 1 at that moment, but he could tell that Parrish wasn’t going to let him leave until his dad came back. If his dad came back. 

Behind Parrish, Bob made a circular gesture at his head towards Tara, who swatted him. But even she looked at him with suspicious eyes. She ushered Bob away, leaving Stiles with one last look of concern. Lawrence stepped away, itching an ear, and then, finally, it was just Parrish.

Parrish, who stood there. Parrish, who opened his mouth awkwardly. Parrish, who said nothing for a long time, at a loss for words. At a loss for some platitude that covered his boss’ son crashing in there like a maniac.

“Stay here,” Parrish ordered finally. “Your dad will be back soon.” When Stiles just shot him a baleful stare, the deputy gripped his best and left.

Stiles had superpowers for months, but this was the first time he’d ever truly felt like a freak. 

Pride stinging, Stiles looked away. He was in a familiar room with cushioned chairs and a dark television. Well away from the temporary holding cells and the deputies’ desks and anything… well… interesting, this was the “child care” center of his youth. He’d spent a lot of time here after his mom died and not much had changed. Magazines from 2011 littered the tables. A wad of green gum was crammed between two hard backed chairs, gluing them together. The open window illuminated a suspicious stain on the rug shaped vaguely like a puffy pig. 

And yet…

Not a single camera had been installed in here, despite his many suggestions.

His brain settled, latching on that, forming a plan. Sweat collected on his temple and rolled down the side of his face. He was scared. He was panicking. But he was not without options.

He waited ten minutes—easily the worst ten in his life. Then, jittery, he rolled to his feet and headed out the room, craning his neck around the corner. When he saw neither Parrish nor any other deputy were in sight, Stiles walked up to the front desk, a mere ten feet away. 

Lawrence was manning it. Stiles had known Lawrence for years. The guy was thirty-five and perpetually single. He had narrow brown eyes and gravity defying red hair that would have made Vash the Stampede cry with jealousy. His scatterbrained personality was legendary, according to his dad’s gripes.

Stiles hoped that would make this easier on poor Lawrence, because he was about to do something extremely unethical. Immoral. Maybe even a little evil.

But he had to find his dad. Even if it meant going through this deputy.

“Hey,” Stiles said hoarsely.

“Hey.”

Stiles stalled. His skin crawled. He’d had a hunch that Lawrence was playing guard dog for Parrish, but was he right? The deputy made like he was holding down the fort, but everyone and their mama knew that the seat of the front desk rarely had a chance to get warm. They were too busy and too understaffed for that.

No, if Lawrence was here for any reason, it was to be a guard, and one who was very good at pretending to be engrossed with his paperwork. He ruffled his papers and everything.

“He-ey,” Stiles said again, drawing out the word this time. He pinched the bridge of his nose; he had the worst migraine. Fucking Parrish. “So… where’d my dad go?”

“That’s police business, Stiles,” Lawrence replied, pretending to read the report in front of him. 

And… nothing. Nothing outside of a whole lot of surface feelings of discomfort and worry, that is.

Across from him, Stiles stared for a long moment, uncomprehending. Then he made a face, realizing his error. “Sorry. I’m having a hard time focusing.” He closed his eyes, clearing his throat. Then, eyes flashing open, he repeated, “ _Where did my dad go?_ ”

He shot up to level 2. Instantly, provoked by his question, an image floated in his mind. He got a faint impression of his dad swinging his jacket over his shoulder on the way out the door. 

_“I’m going to check out the noise complaint on Erbes.”_

Erbes. That wasn’t too far. Hm. Okay.

“That’s… police business?” Lawrence repeated, clearly confused. He jerked when Stiles made the tiny jump from telepathy to complete mind control.

Stiles was gentle. Derek helped him with that, helped him with his control. Neither one of them wasn't bleeding yet and Lawrence, despite the loss of will power, lacked that passive but eager willingness to do Stiles’ bidding. He just watched Stiles with huge black eyes.

“Thank you,” Stiles said sincerely, guilt surging. He shook it off, then took the man's limp hand, clasping it like he would a team mate’s. It helped him anchor the power, keep from pushing too far. “This is how it’s going to be, okay?” Stiles’ jaw tightened. “When Parrish comes around, tell him you never saw me leaving the room.”

“Okay,” was the placid reply. Satisfied, Stiles nodded and let go of him, heading back to his room.

Seconds later, he rounded the corner again, panicked. “Crap, no, that's going to get you _fired_.” The black haze in Lawrence’s eyes had nearly faded by the time Stiles took his hand again. It snapped back up instantly. “This is what we’re going to do instead, okay?” Stiles thought quickly, making a decision. “Two minutes after I say ‘go’, you’re going to sound up an alarm. You’re going shout and tell everyone that you saw me sneaking out of the window—and you’re going to _believe_ it.” Stiles pointed back in the sitting room. “You’re going to have a vivid memory of me wiggling my ass out of that tiny window, okay?”

“Okay.” Completely outside of his control, Lawrence wrinkled his nose. 

Stiles huffed out a pained laugh at that, squeezing the deputy’s hand. “That’s right. But remember, two minutes after I say go. In the meantime, you’re going to do your paperwork.” Looking both ways, Stiles leaned forward. He whispered, “So, repeat after me. ‘That delinquent little fuck-’”

“That delinquent little fuck-”

“-just squirmed through the window!”

“-just squirmed through the window,” Lawrence repeated dully.

Stiles beamed at him. “Perfect, you're going to be a star.”

“Perfect, you're going to be-“

“No, not- not that…” 

All too aware of the camera’s eye on him, Stiles ran lines with the deputy one more time, being careful not to turn around. The one with the best angle of him faced inward, propped above the front door. But it was all video, no audio—and shitty video too. All anyone could see was Stiles talking to someone he’d known since middle school. No one would be able to hear him or read his lips.

Trying to explain why he was running away would be bad enough without the naiad complicating it.  
Stiles went back to the sitting room and crawled out of the window, landing gracelessly on a bush. After he fought his way out of the grasping branches, Stiles whisper-shouted “Go!” through the window. Then he _bolted_ , racing to his car.

He kept low, sliding around the back of his car until he was hanging off his door handle. His dad’s so called eagle eyed deputies had completely failed to notice the haphazard and illegal sprawl of the—yes—still running Jeep. 

Stiles tore out of the parking lot so fast, he almost took a stop sign with him.

And true to his compulsion, two minutes later, his phone blew up with calls. Stiles glanced briefly at the screen once he was several blocks away. There was a lot of familiar names with deputy prefixes. There were negatives of practically growing up in a police station, and one of them was everyone got briefed on his phone number, license plate number, and where he lived. 

The newest name on his contact list flashed accusingly. The others might give Stiles the benefit of the doubt, having known him for so long. Parrish, on the other hand, was going to rip him a new one. He was military and was used to people obeying direct orders. 

And… whatever he had prowling in his mind…

It was a lot more dangerous than some grumbly wolf.

Stiles shook his head, turning his ringer off. His hands clenched on the steering wheel. The sound went away.

The guilt did not.

-

Erbes was a long road. It connected the furthest ranger station with the center of town and winded meanderingly through some scattered neighborhoods and part of the Preserve. So Stiles really had a tough search ahead of him. He spent most of his time driving slow, peering out the window for the tell-tale signs of a sheriff cruiser. He’d already gotten cussed out twice.  
Stiles had his phone on his lap for mapping purposes, aiming for process of elimination—denser neighborhoods, isolated houses, then the woods themselves, in that order. 

There was a lull of ten minutes where no one called him, which was nice. Then it was broken by the flashing of an unknown number. Thinking it might be his dad, Stiles picked up.

The person on the other end immediately barked at him, “What the hell, Stiles!”

“Derek?” Stiles replied, surprised. He winced, remembering the way he’d left that morning. “Look, I know I didn’t say anything, but I-”

Derek talked over him. “I just went to your house,” he hissed, sounding angry. “And I’m _in your room._ ”

“Oh,” was Stiles’ only response.

He and his dad had a strict visiting policy based on mutual respect, mutual trust, …and mutual humiliation from the Summer Incident of 2012. That split second of horror—and the following week and a half of internal screaming—had been worth it in the end, though. 

His dad never saw his room, so his dad never attributed his moods as of late to anything other than senior melancholy and the pain of moving away from your friends. His dad never had a chance to get him, never seeing the worn papers and the scribbled notes of nightmares, and the spools of string connecting everything like spiderwebs. 

He doubted anyone other than his dad could absorb all that information, see what he was seeing.

But there Derek was, looking at it all. Piecing it together, apparently. And with disgusting ease. But Stiles guessed that was what happened when your family kept the rules of the game secret from the ones who were playing it.

“….weren’t supposed to get this far involved,” Derek was saying, desperation breaking through the anger. “You were supposed to come to us, ask questions-”

“And, what, be stonewalled?” Stiles spat, incredulous. “Lied to? Told that you won’t explain it to me because it’s too freaking complicated?” Stiles’ voice turned cold. “What makes you think I need to learn anything from you?”

There was a pause. And then- “We’ve been around. We’ve lived through trial and error of this and… _we have a procedure for this_ , Stiles. People don’t just jump into this and leave unscathed.” Derek let out a noise that was pure aggravation. Stiles imagined him then, turning once in the darkness of Stiles’ room, one hand pressing a phone to his ear, the other one tugging, frustrated, at his own hair.

Stiles wanted so much to go back to that morning, his bones ached. 

Derek’s voice wasn’t helping. “Mom wanted to give you hints and let you decide how much you wanted to get involved, but we’re clearly well beyond that.” Stiles didn’t respond, words caught up tight in his throat. Sensing that, somehow, Derek lowered his voice, gentling it. “Come here, and I’ll tell you everything. About Beacon Hills, about the nemeton, about my family-” 

Stiles clenched the phone so hard, the case creaked. He wasn’t choked up.

He was _livid._

Derek’s offer was tempting—about a year ago. But now, all Stiles could do was seethe. All Stiles could think about where the gatekeepers of information in his life. His dad. Chris. Scott. And now Derek. He was fucking sick of people keeping things from him. 

“I don't have time for your werewolf bullshit, Derek!” Stiles snapped. There was dead silence on the other end. 

Stiles thought about the dog eared page in the Argent journal, stained with blood. Argents had plenty of things to say about werewolves and their own brand of evil. And Stiles wasn’t dumb enough not to recognize propaganda when he read it. 

And yet…

“Look, I can’t-” Stiles’ voice came out wobbly. “I can't- I can't find my dad. I’m sorry, but your procedure? It can take a back-fucking-seat for a week.” With that, Stiles ended the call, tossing his phone into the passenger side seat. Trees and trees and trees met his eyes—no houses.

Realizing he’d gone too far, he swore bitterly, yanking his wheel to the right. He slowed to stop on some dirt and grabbed his phone again, glaring at the map. Derek distracted him from looking—had he missed his dad’s car? 

Just as he was about the reverse and check that patch of Erbes again, he saw a flash of something out of the corner of his eye. He looked and someone looked back at him—a familiar female teenager with curly brown hair and a blank expression. The wolf from his house stood at her side, dwarfing the already small teenager. 

Gage Bernstein and Erik Hale. Or, more correctly, the naiad known as Joy Waldrop.

Alarmed, Stiles sucked in ragged breaths. “You-” he said to no one, heart rattling away in his chest. 

They looked at him, then at each other. Then, without a word, Erik and Gage headed toward a flattened patch of weeds. They walked together sedately, in sync with each other. 

Just before she passed behind a tree, Gage paused, looked at him over her shoulder.

Then they were gone. 

Stiles was covered in sweat. The muscle in his thigh jumped under his fist and, overwhelmed, he pressed his head to the wheel.  
Then he nodded once, brain screaming at him, and jumped straight into action. Tossing on his jacket and shoving his phone in his pocket, he launched out of his car and headed for the gap in the trees at quick clip. 

He didn’t see Gage or Erik again, but he did see a lot of broken plants—bent saplings, torn up bushes, and broken low branches. Something large had moved through here recently, but that was all he could tell. His paranoid mind spun images of monsters and claws, and when that wasn’t gripping it, his insecurities took the wheel.

Should he have followed them? Should have trusted the naiad, when she had done so much damage to his life? Was he risking his dad’s safety by detouring? Or was he being led straight to him? The doubt and fear made his stomach churn. 

Then, ten minutes later, he saw a cruiser smashed up against a thick tree. He broke out into a run, doom overriding all else.

“ _Dad!_ ” 

The lights were off. There was a terrible bent in the frame of the car. Ripped clean off its hinges, the driver side door had been thrown twenty feet away. Claw marks wrenched their way up the metal side and, now that the brush was clearer, he saw the telltale dragging patterns on the dirt floor. 

Stiles hit the side of the cruiser with considerable force, pressing up against the one intact glass. 

His dad was there, slumped sideways in the back seat, like he’d tried to hide. He didn’t respond when Stiles pounded on the window and shouted for him.

Letting out a shaky sob, Stiles scrambled into the front seat. He pressed his face to the wire mesh first, trying to rouse his dad. When that didn’t work, he turned back around, looking at his options. There weren’t many. The radio was ripped out. The sirens were busted. The keys were there, swinging from the ignition, but the cruiser was too damaged to move. 

All Stiles managed to do was yank them out and unlock the back door, needing and dreading it at the same time.  
Stiles choked when he flipped his dad on his back—he was bleeding, and bad. There were four claw marks down the center of his chest, from collarbone to abdomen. 

“No, no, no-” Panicking, Stiles wedged a knee on the bench and curled over him, trying to find a pulse somewhere over the clammy skin of his dad’s neck. “You can’t be- You’re still- You _can’t_.”

Stiles never found that pulse, as he was hyperventilating too much. But a moment later, he had his answer—the answer to the question he never wanted to ask—when a hand suddenly snapped up and grabbed his wrist, brutally hard.

His dad was awake, expression fierce and violent. He didn’t recognize Stiles immediately, but Stiles recognized him. And that was all that mattered. Or so he thought.

Because when his dad remembered the face of his son hovering over him, all the color drained from him. And that terror was worse than the misplaced ferocity. 

“No, no, no-” his dad hissed, eyes huge and panicked. “You can’t be here!”

Torn confusingly between relief and lingering dread, Stiles demanded, “Why not?” 

"Hello, Stiles."

-

"Calm down, Sheriff. You'll give yourself a heart attack."

Stiles almost brained himself on the roof of the cruiser, trying to get out. His dad wasn’t much better, not that he managed to stand in the end. He kept a rigid grip on Stiles’ shoulder, trying to pull him back, even as Stiles planted himself between his dad and… that guy. 

Stiles immediately snapped out with his powers. He was rewarded with the burn of a mind control gone wrong. Blood slickly oozing from his nose but Stiles barely registered the pain. 

The only time he actually wanted his tainted superpowers and the fucker was immune.

“Is that what she gave you?” the man responded curiously. “How pitiful. Makes me feel bad for you, truly.” He walked out from behind a tree. 

Stiles was of the opinion that what was scary in the moonlight tended to look ridiculously in the bright sun. But the sun didn’t do much to wear down the effect of Gerard Argent. Little could. He was using a well-worn handkerchief on his hands, meticulously cleaning under his nails. Splotches of red bloomed across the white surface.

“It’s almost like she’s setting you up for failure.” Gerard met his eyes finally. Red flitted over those familiar dark eyes. 

Stiles swallowed. He already knew Gerard was a werewolf, way back when he was still just “Chris” to Stiles, but now he knew something else. According to the Argent journal, red eyes meant alpha. Better strength, better healing, better speed. Better all around.

Stiles was… fucked. And so was his dad.

“Then again,” Gerard rumbled, gesturing around him, “this is the day for surprises, isn’t it?” He smiled faintly. “I’d hoped to be the one to enlighten the sheriff here about the darker sides of his idyllic little town. To my surprise, he was already well versed. Wolfsbane bullets, was it?” The hand on Stiles’ shoulder tightened by a fraction. 

“Too bad you missed.” A faint look of annoyance flickered over Gerard’s face. He lifted up his arm. “Well, mostly.”

Gerard’s gray cardigan was matted and bloody over his side—a clear bullet hole. Stiles gagged at the sight, because the wound was pitted and deep, blackened but bright blue in the center. 

As Gerard picked at the wound with two claws, Stiles scanned the ground Stiles wanted nothing more than to put ten more like it in this guy’ head.

He found his dad’s gun ten feet away. Concentrating, he looped his mind around it, ready to tug-  
Gerard’s foot came down on the grip. He glowered at Stiles. “It's empty, you fool.”

Stiles stopped pulling. He looked back at his dad for confirmation, stunned by the bleak expression on his pale sweaty face. He’d fired everything he had, even though it was against his training. Then again, they didn’t train cops to handle werewolves. 

Or massive blood loss. His dad’s grip on his shoulder failed and he fell back slowly, consciousness failing him.

“Dad? Dad!” Stiles caught him before he could go all the way down, lowering him gently back into the cruiser. Then, kicking himself, he took off his jacket, using it to put pressure on the wounds. One hand pressed down. The other fiddled with his phone in his pocket. Down went the volume, up went the history. He tapped on Parrish’s name and let go. 

“Dad,” Stiles called out. He got a muzzy answer from below him, as his dad was pretty out of it. He looked over his shoulder. Gerard had managed to pluck out the bullet in his side. Bizarrely, he was cracking it open and shaking the contents in his open palm. 

Stiles was running out of time. 

Stiles looked up at the mangled frame of the car and said, shakily but with purpose, “I can’t reach your first aid kit in the trunk.” It was smashed up against a tree.

Behind him, there was a sizzling sound, then low and vicious cursing.

Stiles tried not to think of the implications of that, not when he had his father’s blood cooling on his hands. Instead, he clenched his eyes shut and forced himself to imagine calm, competent Parrish on the other side of that phone. He imagined Parrish’s frown tightening, registering the information Sties was giving him. 

_Officer down. Unresponsive and injured and within the vicinity of his squad car._

Stiles’ eyes shot open. He stared at the conspicuous rectangle in the cloth, mind racing.

They’d had a spat of motor vehicle theft from the station about ten years ago. The whole department ended up getting GPS trackers in their cruisers. And he’d given Parrish enough probable cause to use it. He hoped.

Something hooked into his shirt, yanking him out of the car in one powerful pull.

“Wait, wait _wait_ -” Stiles hit the ground, tailbone first. “Don’t hurt him!”

Eyes reddening, teeth lengthening, Gerard ignored him, yanking Stiles’ dad out of the car by his leg. The Sheriff of Beacon County bounced down on the dirt, unconscious, bloody, and at the feet of a transforming monster. Stiles’ jacket—and the phone within in—rolled just two feet away.

With horrible finality, Gerard dropped to a knee, cracking the knuckles of one clawed and increasingly furry hand. It was an image he would never be able to shake for the rest of his life.

Made wild with fear, Stiles scrambled to his hands and knees, crawling over to them. “Don’t- I’m still- I’m still-“ Words were like tar in his mouth, but he kept spitting them out, trying to make them mean things. “Don’t… I know things. I can’t-” Gerard’s arm pulled back, preparing to swing, and it was like Stiles’ whole life was narrowed down to this one moment, this one situation, this one loss.  
“ _I’ll make a deal with you!_ ”

Claws stopped, centimeters from his dad’s throat. After a beat, Gerard angled his face toward Stiles. “I’m listening.”

His stomach went cold. Suddenly, his head was clearer, sharper than before. He pointed a shaking finger at his dad. “You- you leave him here, where he is, with no further harm coming to him. I'll tell you everything I know about her.” When Gerard shot him an unimpressed look, Stiles snapped, “You've been indulging me for a reason, Gerard Argent.” He dug his nails into his palms, hoping he was talking loud enough for the phone to pick him up. 

When Gerard continued to stare at him, Stiles pressed his advantage. “You don't know what she's been up to, where she is, what she's thinking. But you _do_ know she's been talking to me. You leave him here, alone, without any further harm, everything I know, everything I've seen, I'll share with you.” 

Gerard paused, clearing considering this. Then he stood slowly, brushing his hands off on his pants. Stiles rose with him, feeling lightheaded and jittery.

“I- it’s a good deal. No one- no one knows where we are and you-” Stiles sucked in a fortifying breath before announcing firmly, “You need to know this information.”

“Need?” the man echoed, poison curling in the word.

Stiles steeled his spine. For once, he was a gatekeeper of information. He only hoped it was enough to keep his dad alive.

“Yes, need,” he spat. “Vicious vengeful naiad, remember?” 

Gerard laughed at that, all hints of the monster behind the man fading behind skin. “Very well, very well,” he said, clearly amused. “You have yourself a deal.” 

Abruptly, he struck Stiles across face. White starbursts of light exploded in his vision and, as he went down, all he could think of was Parrish and _kidnapping in progress_. 

-

Poking at the puffy edges of his cheekbone, Stiles kept walking deeper and deeper into the woods. He alternatively roughly between stone cold terror and helpless fury—sometimes feeling them both at the same time. He was a dead man walking, and he knew it.  
He clenched his eyes shut, focusing on the naiad fiercely. _You tried to save Gage. You warned me about Dad. There’s good in you still._

_Please don’t let me die out here._

A hard palm between Stiles’ shoulders sent him forward a few feet, tripping. He gritted his teeth and kept up the pace. Gerard was only a few feet behind him and faring better at this trek, despite his age. 

He hadn’t knocked Stiles out. Instead, he made him pretty woozy, hitting the exact level of disorientation Gerard was looking for before dragged off through the trees and away from his dad. 

His dad, who was on the fast track to getting rescued. Stiles, on the other hand…

_Joy, don’t let me die out here._

It was getting darker all around him. The trees were spinning and Stiles was always just a hair’s breadth away from puking. 

Stiles was hopelessly, unbelievably _lost_. And by Gerard’s design, no doubt. But he didn’t need to give Stiles a concussion to achieve that. It wasn’t like the Preserve was tiny. Over 5000 acres, only a fourth of it was home to human-friendly trails. Guessing by the number of bushes he had to climb over, he figured this area belonged to the other 75%. 

If that wasn’t enough, he’d been ordered to speak, and speak quickly, and Stiles had never felt less like speaking in his entire life. But speak, he did, rambling without stopping, hoping there was something in his speech that would get Gerard to bite.

“The nemeton is corrupted?” Gerard interrupted. “That’s why she was there.”

“Yeah, she was containing it.” Bitterly, he muttered to himself, “And she was doing fine until _you_ came along...”

Gerard ignored him. “When did you first hear her?” 

“Uh…” Stiles squinted up at the trees, needing to think about it. “Fall, I think? 2010.”

The crusty laugh that erupted out of Gerard made Stiles’ whole body flinch. “2010?” he echoed darkly, chuckling. “If you only knew…” 

“Knew what?” Stiles demanded, looking behind him, but before he could get a good look at the old man, he was prodded forward hard, and hard enough to stumble. 

Then a tight hand clamped over his shoulder, a brutal parody of his dad’s protective grasp only twenty minutes earlier. Hard claws pressed through the rough fabric of Stiles’ shirt, pricking through skin. 

Then, quietly, Gerard whispered. “I spent _so_ much time pursuing and killing everyone she sung to, thinking each one of them was the last. Countless hours of watching, hiding, _researching_ -” The last word was emphasized with a harsh squeeze and a shake. “Imagine my surprise when you, years later, suddenly show up, a listener right under my nose.” 

“Unlucky,” Stiles commented rigidly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gerard was shooting him a toothy smile. He was shoved forward again.

“If it helps you any, don't think of your death tonight as an abrupt end. Since you entered that book store, you've been on borrowed time.” Gerard’s voice lowered, edged with dangerous intent. “Keep walking. I have a few more questions.

So Stiles kept walking. It kept getting dark. He kept getting lost. Only this time, he was silent. Waiting. Sweat pooled at the small of his back. He flinched at every sound—every cracking branch, every crushed leaf, every exhaled breath. His skin was crawling.  
His time was up.

The next time Stiles turned around, Gerard was gone. Stiles’ stomach swooped down to his knees and he stumbled over to a tree, propping himself up on it before he fell down. 

“Hey,” he croaked. “Hey!”

No one responded. There wasn’t a single sound outside the heartbeat pounding in his head.

Then, softly, Gerard whispered, “She Gifted you.”

Stiles spun, facing the source of the noise. There were a couple of cracks, like branches shattering, and a soft shuffling sound of leaves. But as deeply as he peered into the deepening shadows, he could see no one. Dread dried up his throat.

Seeing red out of the corner of his eye, he pivoted in time to see a bush snap back violently. There was an impact thud and more displaced leaves, then nothing.

He was being hunted.

“Not with my consent,” Stiles countered weakly, trying to stall.

When Gerard’s voice came again, it was thickened, likely by the barrier of teeth too big for one’s mouth. “ _Power doesn’t come with a return receipt, boy. Nor do they come for free._ ” Something splintered behind him, then splintered behind him again when he faced it. Spinning, his eyes darted all around him, seeing only swaying and wild greenery.

“ _What did she want you to do?_ ”

Gulping, Stiles put his back to a tree, shuddering. “She wasn’t in the right frame of mind to give me all the terms and conditions.” When something exploded to his left, he yelped, shouting, “She wanted someone to understand!”

“ _Understand what?_ ”

Everything. Her role in Gage’s destruction and Erik’s loss of control. Her role in Talia’s choice to put down her son. Her role in Gerard’s continuing presence in the area, the “mountain lion” deaths he staged because of her.

“How much she freaking hates you,” Stiles whispered, trembling. He closed his eyes when the tree shook, vibrating with some blow. Then, slowly, Stiles looked up.

Gerard stared back at him from four feet away, red eyes bloodshot, claws embedded in the trunk, and mouth pulled into a wide, rigid grin. “ _Not. New. Information!_ ”  
Crying out, Stiles threw himself away from the tree. Not fast enough—four lines of fire opened up over his side in seconds. 

He kept running, bolting up a hill. He reversed when something heavy landed in front of him, then rolling under a fallen tree. It shattered behind him mere moments after he got back to his feet. 

He didn’t look back. He couldn’t. All there was him, his heartbeat, and his feet hitting the dirt.

Instinct had him ducking, dodging a rock thrown with all the force of a cannon ball. Gut had him zigzagging through the trees and holes, earning him space between him and a werewolf bent on ripping him apart. Intelligence had him reaching out with his powers to rip down trees and rocks in his favor, successfully blocking Gerard from following him at one point.

But misfortune trapped him with an impenetrable wall.

He’d slid down into the ravine without thinking, splashing into ankle deep water. It was only when he tried to move forward that he realized his error—the ravine wall on the other side. It ran on, uninterrupted as far as he could see. 

He wasted his precious few seconds, stalled and agonizing over it. Then, making up his mind, he charged left, aiming to follow the ravine all the way down.

Gerard got there first. One minute, Stiles was running. The next, he was being thrown into the shallow waters.  
Stiles lashed out with his powers, forcing Gerard’s hands open and away. But the werewolf above him pressed back just as hard, relentless, overcoming the push. Then he brutally kneed Stiles in the stomach, chasing the air and focus out of him, before clamping his fingers around Stiles’ throat. 

Winded, Stiles scratched viciously at Gerard’s wrists, drawing blood. That monstrous face above him smirked as he thrashed futilely in the water, fighting for air, fighting for anything that would chase the stars out of his vision. Clawed hands briefly relented, letting Stiles get half a breath of air—which he wasted with a wheeze that expelled more air than in it let in.

“The naiad- the n-naiad-” Stiles coughed harshly. 

“You don’t get it, do you?” Gerard whispered. Stiles stared at him, not comprehending. “I have no intention of facing a pissed off naiad. She’s been stalling, but her time is up.” Fangs snapped inches from Stiles’ face as Gerard reveled in his plan. “Nemeton or no nemeton, she has three days until her transformation is complete. The thing that will be left behind won’t be a guardian and purifier of a tree. She’ll be a creature of hatred and betrayal—begetter of trouble, causer of conflict! And the first people she’ll go after those goddamn _Hales._ ”

Stiles’ blood ran cold. _Derek_. “No…”

“Yes,” Gerard hissed, countering with satisfaction. “While the Hales are dealing with that threat, I’ll find that nemeton and take back the power that was stolen from me. Then everyone will _suffer_ -”

Fury made Stiles forget the claws at his throat. “Do you even _understand_ how science works?” he snapped. “You based your whole plan on one poorly translated Russian document, and you’re not even following their rules!” Gerard stilled at that. “Every note they compiled, every conclusion they came up with was a result of a very specific experimental set up, _and it did not involve a fucking nemeton_!”

Stiles’ scream echoed through the ravine. The whisper that followed was no less harsh, no less livid, spat like venom. He trembled with the force of it, his throat raw. “ _You overly satisfied piece of shit._ She’s stronger that you think she is. She’s more than her function. She can teleport through water and drop in through the rain and snake up your pipes. She’s more powerful than you’re ready for!” Stiles gritted his teeth. “And guess what? Your three day timeline is bullshit. I pulled that bone out of her chest hours ago. She’s gunning for you, Gerard Argent. You’re the one on borrowed time!”

Gerard’s expression twisted hatefully. He shoved Stiles’ head back to the floor, claws pricking his scalp. “You’re lying,” he accused, but there was something else in his face now—self-preservation, an animal nervousness. 

An ungodly shriek tore through the air, like if a kraken had lungs. The cool waters that licked up his arm turned icy and thick. What little light of the day remained faded quickly under a miasma of darkness. 

Stiles didn’t break eye contact. “Am I lying? You tell me.” 

A moment later, Gerard was yanked off of him so hard, his spine snapped.

-

Stiles sat in hip deep black waters. He was cold, aching to the bone, but he did not try to leave. He did not uncurl from his position—knees to his chest—and he did not pull his hands away from where they were half-shielding his face.

The wet dull sound of a meaty creature being pummeled had stopped somewhere in the last minute or so, but he didn’t dare look up. He stared instead down at the thick, tar-like water around him, dreading the thinning waves that rippled through it faster and faster until all there was to see was a bare of gray feet in the water.

Stopping. Just in front of him.

A drop of ruby red blood hit the water then, barely visible before being eaten up by all the black. 

Stiles let out a shuddery breath, licking his lips. “N-none of that Cthulhu bullshit right now,” he ordered weakly through a raw throat. “I don’t know how close you are to your bad, people-hating self, but try to remember I helped you, and we had a deal.”

A gentle hand settled on the crown of his head, startling him. Slowly, he uncurled, dropping his arms. Then he looked up, expecting that weak, withered naiad he’d found, submerged, in the nemeton cellar. He expected worse, even, something darker, something more terrifying—the begetter of trouble, causer of conflict Gerard sought to create. Instead, he saw…

Joy Waldrop. 

Of course, she didn’t look like her picture in the paper. Not really, anyway. Most of her features were the same, but enough were gone to raise some eyebrows. Speaking of which, she didn’t have any. She didn’t have a nose either, the raised cartilage replaced with flat slits instead. Her ears were longer, more webbed than a human’s, and her lips were nonexistent. And her eyes were completely black from corner to corner, instantly recognizable.

Her expression was exhausted, but kind. Apologetic too, in growing degrees, blooming into something that couldn’t be mistaken for anything else but concerned. She had the look of someone realizing the magnitude of what she was doing, the far reaching effects of her crusades, and, like most people would, regretting it. Her hand skimmed the side of his face before falling to her side.

“You came,” Stiles said woodenly.

“You called,” Joy replied.

Stiles blinked up at her, shaking slightly. “I did.” And his mind couldn’t help but jump to the consequences of that.

And his mind was no secret to her. She visibly winced. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She clasped her hands over her gray and fraying dress, strange pointed fingers curling together under the blackened hole that still remained in her chest. 

God, was it even bigger now? He had to yank on that bone so hard-

Her hand was on his hair again, gentle. It felt like forgiveness. Stiles let out a breath he’d been holding for months. He sagged under her touch. “I’m sorry too,” he said, meaning it. 

He looked up, meeting her featureless eyes, but he couldn’t hold his gaze. The massive seven foot shadow behind her was hard to ignore. 

Because broken bones meant nothing to alpha werewolves.

The naiad gasped, jerking forward as claws penetrated through her back and out the other side. They were yanked out wetly, brutally, and without care.

Joy collapsed on him, fingers biting into his upper arm as she tried to weather through this new pain. Stiles held her, thinking not of this stranger, but of Gage in her last moments, hunted and in pain.

He thought of Erik in his grief, his desperate attempt to make things right. He thought of Talia and her agony, having to turn on her son. He thought of Derek and being denied by him, then hounded by his attempts to lead Stiles on a safer path. He thought of Scott and his stubborn, fearful silence, the distance that felt like smothering weight all the same. 

Then, throat catching, he thought of his dad, bloodied and abandoned, afraid for Stiles in even his last waking moment.

They never had a chance with this guy skulking in the woods, hiding in plain sight in town. They never had a chance to make things better with him around. 

And they never would.

A moment later, a thick broken branch flew through the air like a javelin. It stabbed the unexpecting werewolf through the meatiest part of his chest. A beastly howl ripped through the air, cutting Stiles down to the bone. 

But Stiles didn’t stop. Hand extended and tasting blood in his mouth, Stiles watched Gerard thrash with dull pained eyes. Then, remembering wild Bunsen burners and a panicked dash through a school, he snapped his fingers.

Before his very eyes, Gerard Argent burst into flames.

-

“If it helps you sleep at night,” Joy wheezed, “It’s my powers that killed him. Not yours.” Her arm curled just a little bit tighter around his neck.

“What’s that saying?” Stiles muttered. Each word felt like a stone attached to his back, weighing him ever downward. “It’s not what you use, but how you use it?” 

He huffed and puffed his way up a grassy, though otherwise sparse hill. He dropped to a knee then, readjusting his grip on Joy’s body. With each moment, she seemed lighter, more withered. She was no longer bleeding blood, but rather a relentless black tar. She watched him with quiet, heavy-lidded eyes that Stiles tried hard not to meet.

Stiles stopped under a tree. “Are you sure this is the right way?” A narrow, suspicious glance was cast out around them. Night had truly fallen by then, but this was not the darkness of night. Instead, it was the taint that had hung off Derek’s plants and oozed off the nemeton that one night. It was thick and corrupt and knowing.

Shadows upon shadows with hundreds of eyes. Strange. Stiles had always assumed that otherworldly gaze was Joy herself.

Except Joy was watching the shadows nervously too.

“Hey,” Stiles prodded, squinting down at her. It was so dark, he could barely see. He couldn’t tell if she was naturally gray or if it was the effect of the darkness. “Is this the right way?”

Joy blinked slowly. “It’s the right way for you,” she said, clearly drowsing. Her eyelids were sinking.

Stiles shook her once. “Hey. _Hey_ , don’t do that. I need you! If you die like this, I-”

Her eyes flicked open. She smiled muzzily. “It will leave you alone soon,” she whispered. “I’m its anchor.” She wasn’t making any sense. “Once I go, don’t panic. Follow the flashing lights.” She lifted her hand up between them. Within seconds, a bright and beautiful little light was pinched between three of her fingers. 

It even put off warmth, but what little settled on his bones was chased off when he looked around. He hadn’t seen close the formless shadows had been until the light chased them off. They whipped away aggressively, like massive limbs. Or tails. 

Stiles let out a shaky breath, peering into the darkness. When he looked back at Joy, he yelped, appalled.

The naiad was digging her fingers into the hole in her chest. Ignoring his protest about first aid, she rooted around the bone, wincing. Finally, she found was she was looking for and pulled it out, showing Stiles the gory mess of whatever it was.

It was… a bottle. A small little glass holder with the faintest iridescent glow coming from within. It was broken, leaking at the bottom. Drained of energy, she thoughtlessly dropped it into her lap.

He put her down on the ground gently, staring at it. She pressed a companionable hand on his chest as he rocked back on his knees, still close. Under the faint light she was putting off, he saw that her skin was flaring up with symbols of a language he didn’t know, thickly inked in purples and blacks.

“Stiles,” she hummed. Her head hung limply from her neck as she stared up at him. “I’m sorry, Stiles. I have one more request. Then I will remove my Gift. I promise.” 

He didn’t answer right away, the pros and cons eating at him. If he said yes, who knew what else he was getting himself into? But if he said no…

He’d be stuck with these powers forever. He’d forever be on the cusp of hurting people, manipulating people, even killing-

Stiles’ chest constricted, but he forced himself to finish the thought. Yes, he could even kill another, one not as deserving as Gerard Argent, maybe even someone innocent. And Stiles could not-

He could not be that person. So, licking his lips, Stiles nodded mutely, accepting her request. 

“Heed my words and carry them to Talia. That’s all.” The naiad sucked in a deep breath. When she spoke, her voice was tight, upset. “It’s still… It’s still corrupted. And it’s… stronger. I made mistakes, I underestimated it. It fed off of fear and chaos and me. I failed… Talia. I-”

Joy choked suddenly, coughing harshly. She was unable to finish. A moment later, the light in her fingers was snuffed out. Darkness swooped in. 

Stiles blindly tried to sooth her through her episode, tried to get her to calm down, but she kept shaking her head sharply, trying to talk. Finally, she ripped the still gleaming bottle out of her lap, shoving it into Stiles’ hand, clamping his fingers around it. And, before Stiles knew it, he felt the familiar press of her mind rattling against his. 

Something sharp, eerie, and cold stood between them for a moment, bristling with hooks and fangs. Then, as if it was an illusion, it disappeared, fading into nothingness. 

With it gone, Joy calmed. Sensing his unease, she focused on him with what little energy she had left. But it was with all the depth of cotton candy and clouds. He needed more from her, especially now.

“You wanted to tell me something,” he reminded her. When she just stared up at him, he said, “What is _it_?”

She couldn’t answer. Even her mind was blank. His heart sank, but she smiled up at him.

It’s okay, she urged. Something soft and gentle brushed over Stiles’ thoughts. It’s okay. 

Despite knowing better, Stiles let his shoulders loosen. He let her words rush over him. _It’s okay._

“It’s okay,” he echoed mindlessly. “It’s o-” He turned the leaking bottle in his hand, eyes riveted on the fading light. With his mind as pressed up to hers as it was, she couldn’t hid the fact that he literally held her heart in his hand or the fact that she was dying. “I thought you were immortal.”

No, she wasn’t. But it was okay anyway. She told him why. She told him the answer to every little question he’d had about her, about Gerard’s designs on the nemeton, and she told him in the secret space between their minds.

She’d been hunted for a long time—by other creatures, by man, by kings, by gods. Her and everyone she called family. But for a few centuries, it had been good. They made it so. Naiads and nymphs and creatures of nature were sick of being killed for sport and trophy, so they spread a lie. There were two parts to this lie—death and change.

There is no such thing as transformation. The thing hunters sought to control was their healing process, no more, no less. Hunters could no more control their kind’s inclination, their nature than they could alter the phases of the moon.

And just as there was no such thing as transformation, there was no such thing as immortality. 

Which led back to that broken, leaking bottle. It had been pierced by the bone Gerard had used to stab her in the chest. The force and effort she’d taken off with to save Stiles only chipped it further. Only a few drops of her life were left, gray and blackened with taint from the corrupted nemeton. 

There was nothing left to save. She’d been dead since he plunged the bone in her chest. 

But it was okay. Everything would be okay, she insisted. Everything.

Stiles didn’t have the heart to challenge that. 

When Joy died, the shadows lifted from the space, just as she said it would. Cold clawed across Stiles’ back as it retreated but couldn’t find a foot hold. It was like water sliding off of Teflon. So Stiles just shivered, rubbing at his face, trying to deal with the quiet, but drowning emotions that choked him.

But when he looked up, he saw the lights she was talking about—red and blue bouncing through the trees like a beacon home.

-

Three days later saw him at the Hale house again. Talia was sitting down at her kitchen table, hands on her head. She stared down at the surface in front of her, absorbing what Stiles had told her. Then, slowly, she smoothed her head through her palms, arresting and sober gaze fixed on Stiles’ face. Her eyes were bloodshot, red from tears.

The bottle that once held Joy’s life water sat between them, the cracked bottom huge and ugly in Stiles’ eyes.

Stiles was curled awkwardly around his stitches. He had a minor phobia of wrenching them open. Really, he shouldn’t have been driving at all, but all he could think about was the last thing he agreed to. Joy never specified a timeline, but Stiles didn’t want to push it.

He did his best trying to fulfill his promise. But he didn’t know all of what Joy wanted him to say, so he shared all of it—probably too much, given how upset Talia looked.

Finally, Talia cleared her throat. She tried on a smile, but it was a pitiful thing. “Joy was a champion talker. For her to rely so much on imagery and twisted memories… she must have been really far gone.” She rubbed at her temples. 

“Do you blame her for Erik?”

Talia stilled. Her eyes settled on him steadily. When she spoke, her voice held no inflection. “Did she show you me murdering my son?”

“No. But I figured it out.” Stiles shifted in his chair, huddled around his injuries. “He went after Peter. He was…” He trailed off, trying to figure out how to phrase his thoughts.

“Feral,” Talia provided. “Rabid, even.” A muscle in her jaw ticked. Her expression turned introspective. “I tried to snap him out of it, but his grief and his guilt… he couldn’t hear me past them.” 

“Bloodlust too.”

“Yes.” Talia cocked her head to the side. Then, regally, she reached out over the table to him. Her eyebrows raised when he did nothing. 

Stiles didn’t understand the gesture. He hesitated before offering up his hand. Nodding in approval, she clasped it between both of her warm palms. Black veins darted up her arm at the same speed that every pain, every ache, every stabbing sensation leeched out of Stiles. He let out a quaky gasp, slumping forward.

“You were making me feel uncomfortable,” she explained with a quirk of her lips. 

Stiles was impressed with this new development. He was not, however, impressed with her stalling tactic. “It’s not your fault.”

“Isn’t it?” she muttered. When he made a confused noise, she shrugged. “The whole pack heard everything. Did you know that? They were converging in on us, anxious and scared. My son, my daughter, my… husband…” 

Remembering the talk that spread around when Robert Hale left one day and didn’t come back, Stiles winced, looking away briefly.

When he braved eye contact again, he saw that a sad smile was pulling at Talia’s lips. “And all I could think of was how fragile they all were, compared to Erik in his final moments. How vulnerable. My husband was human and Laura wouldn’t think to shift. And Derek and Cora were so young, so inexperienced.” She sighed, squeezing Stiles’ hand once. “All I could see was Erik cutting a bloody path through my family, starting with my little brother.”

“You’re an alpha,” Stiles said slowly. “And an alpha is supposed to protect the pack.”

“Yes, an alpha,” Talia agreed. She released him, pulling back. “But perhaps not a mother, I don’t think. Not to that extreme.” 

To Talia, this was a closed book. An undisputed chapter in the history of her family. But it wasn’t to Stiles. It still didn’t sit right with him. His mind kept going back to the darkness with many eyes, Joy’s interrupted final request. There was something more here than an alpha needing to put down her raging beta son.

“Do you think the corruption in the nemeton played a role?”

“That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Having something else to blame besides myself?” Talia stood. She looked tired. “I made the choice, Stiles. Not that tree.” 

Stiles stood as well. “But maybe it affected you. Maybe it muted your alpha powers. Maybe it made Erik deaf to you. Maybe-“

“I don’t have the time or the heart to play maybes,” Talia interrupted, exasperated.

Realizing he’d crossed the line, Stiles settled back on his heels. He mumbled an apology to his chest.

“It’s okay,” Talia replied dismissively, and Stiles flinched. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to hear that phrase again without imagining Joy on the ground, dying, last request stolen from her mind. 

“Thank you, Stiles,” Talia said, holding the kitchen door open. Despite Stiles’ prodding, her gaze was kind. “For everything.”

Stiles stepped through the frame. He paused half-way through, turning to her. His hands clenched into fists at his sides—a poor attempt to clamp down on the trembling. “Gerard said he killed everyone who followed her song.” He swallowed, skin crawling. “Do you- did you know-“

How many were actually dead. How many died when Stiles turned his back on the death cries of a surprisingly mortal ancient being.

“Don’t ask that question. You don’t want to know that answer.” 

She was right. He didn’t.

-

The rest of the Hale clan swooped down on them almost instantly, bristling. Talia had ordered them away before locking Stiles and herself in the sound-proofed kitchen, but now was the time for revelation—for her to choose what to share what had been shared behind sealed doors.

Stiles lingered for only one reason, only one person. And that same person stared at him feet away, mouth pressed into a thin line, eyes too bright to look at for long.

Derek almost intercepted Stiles on his way to meet Talia. He’d run in from the woods at a speed Stiles wouldn’t have expected from a man in jeans. But before Derek could get out more than his name, Talia murmured, “ _Space_ , Derek,” like he was a forgetful child.

And Derek froze in place, teeth clicking shut. He hadn’t said anything since, but Stiles’ mind ran wild with that. Space plus hours at the hospital alone—no visitors, no one to upset him, no one to accidentally trod on the huge open wound that was his dad in a coma in a hospital bed. His dad was out of the coma now, of course, but that didn’t make a difference, did it?

Space plus no one—what did that equal? The math was easy, so easy that it made him…

Angry? Maybe? At least he was pretty sure he was. Because there was only so long you could stare at a wall by yourself before you started wishing _someone_ was beside you. Anyone.

But they ‘meant well’. Psh. 

Space, she reminded him, like it was an order. And, according to the Argent journal, questioning an alpha just wasn’t done. But Derek was toeing the line now, taking a half step towards Stiles, his eyes darting all over his face.

Part of him felt tugged towards Derek. But part of him always felt tugged that way, so he put his full weight on his heel and waited.

The truth of the naiad and the nemeton went over like a lead balloon. Cora turned a bright and furious color, mouth pressing into a white line. Peter leaned in to Talia, snapping out a steady stream of low, sharp questions that Talia kept deflecting. And Derek?

Derek was _pissed_. Incandescently so. It quickly became apparent that Stiles wasn’t immune to this, even if that brand of anger had a different flavor—like desperation. Like watching someone purposefully drop over a cliff with no support. It was clear he hadn’t forgiven Stiles for that phone call either.

But if he was mad at Stiles, he was on the verge of homicide every time Peter opened his mouth, and Stiles…

Stiles was exhausted. He couldn’t feel anyone’s feelings anymore, let alone their thoughts, but he remembered how they felt, the complexity and weight of them. And he was… done. Done for now, anyway. He had his own to carry, thanks. 

Stiles left the Hales arguing about details and went back to the hospital. He sat back down in the chair next to his dad’s chair, squeezing his fingers so hard, his hands creaked. 

He only took his attention off his dad once, and that was to stare at the cord hanging from the television. He focused on it long and hard, glowering at it so deeply, he developed a headache. He imagined his mind looping around it. He imagined striking it. He imagined stomping up to it and yanking it out of the wall by brute force alone.

But it didn’t move.

With any luck, this chapter of his life was over. He’d fulfilled Joy’s last request.

-

Someone shook him awake. Stiles woke up elegantly, mouth fumbling over a few misinformed words. He squinted at the window and the slowly setting sun. He’d stayed all day, but he couldn’t remember most of it. He covered his face with his hand.

“Didn’t think I’d see you again so soon!” Melissa called out from the other side of the room. Stiles’ dropped his hand and, slowly, the vague form of his best friend’s mother solidified in his vision. She was checking his dad’s vitals. “Weren’t you released this morning?” She smiled at him at first, but soon frowned. All he could give her was a hollow look.

She hesitated, then reached out for his dad’s chart, using it as a shield. “I can’t let you stay here, Stiles.”

“Then give me back my bed.”

Melissa’s head shot up. Her eyes narrowed. Kind as she was, she’d raised a moody teenager and had no tolerance for shitty attitudes. “Sure. Tear out your stitches first and I’ll get right on that.” When Stiles stared back at her, her expression softened. “Go _home_ , Stiles. You’ll feel a lot better later.”

-

Stiles was crashing by the time he got home. His only anticipation for the night was staying alone, sleeping a little, then getting up to visit his dad again. 

That wasn’t to be. 

He hadn’t even parked yet before he spied on a lanky figure rising from his front porch. It was Scott, grim-faced and hopeful at the same time. 

Feeling uneasy, Stiles met him awkwardly in the middle, fiddling with his keys. There was a long pause. 

Finally, he said, “Someone tell you to give me some space too?”

Scott let out a shaky laugh, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah,” he said, voice choked. He was staring at the ground. He sounded-

He sounded like he was _crying._

“Yeah, and it’s-“ Scott’s face scrunched up in agony. “-it’s really dumb advice, isn’t it?” His eyes flicked up then, meeting Stiles’ own.

Two moments later, they were colliding in a hard embrace. 

-

So the universe hated him, according to Scott. Because basically everything shitty and chaotic that happened to him in the last year stemmed from an honest attempt at peace.

Scott had the stories to prove it. Without any restraint, he told Stiles everything he had ever held back. No, seriously. He even had notes, a timeline with many tails written in at least five people’s handwriting. One of them was even Lydia’s. He’d clearly done his homework.

Anyway, when they were sophomores, there was a hunter and werewolf peace talk in Beacon Hills. Deucalion Kain, the first murder on Stiles’ naiad list, was the orchestrator of the talks and apparently very eager to do something about the centuries-old bad blood between them.

But they were sabotaged in the end. Deucalion lost his eyesight. Possessing a strange sense of humor, Deucalion decided that the saboteur, Gerard Argent, needed to “walk a mile in his shoes”. So he made the poor decision of turning Gerard into a beta.

“And, really,” Scott said heatedly, bouncing on the couch, “Fuck that guy.”

“What a douche-canoe.”

The Argents were an age-old hunter family with a ton of rules about this sort of thing. Although the codes said to kill yourself once you’d been turned, Deucalion guessed that Gerard was too enamored with his continued existence to practice what he preached. 

And, douche-canoe or not, Deucalion was right. But Deucalion also vastly underestimated Gerard and his desire for power; within a week, Gerard attacked and killed the blind alpha, inheriting his powers. Possessing a healthy sense for self-preservation, Deucalion’s betas destroyed all pack bonds with him immediately, fleeing in all directions.

Almost an omega at this point, Gerard turned his eye on the nemeton, but it was protected. Believing the only hunter lore he could find on naiads, he tried to transform the naiad into something that would no longer prioritize protecting a tree of power so he could take that power himself. 

Chris—the REAL Christ Argent—was entirely unaware of this. Around this same time, he was hunting in the Preserve with a group of hunters, trying to find his father. Gerard attacked him, killing his party and savagely mauling Chris to the point where Gerard took off with much of his leg. According to Scott, Chris, being a terrifyingly stubborn individual, survived this, crawling five miles to a road where a teenage Derek Hale found him and rushed him to the hospital. 

“Familial betrayal,” Stiles muttered to himself, grossed out by his realization. He gagged, remembering the bone he’d carelessly tossed in a bush. It was one thing to touch it. It was quite another to know the face of the person it used to belong to. 

But, according to Scott, Gerard didn’t get time to corrupt the naiad, as he was immediately attacked. Ennis’ betas led the assault against the new alpha, but they suffered heavy losses. They left Gerard alone on the forest floor with his throat ripped out. His body was found and he was pronounced dead.

“But, but!” Scott exclaimed, flapping his timeline at Stiles. “He wasn’t. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here.”

Two days later saw him breaking out of a morgue. Three days later saw him at the foot of the nemeton, putting into place the events that led to Stiles’ involvement—the tainting of the naiad once known as Joy Waldrop.

Scott rummaged through the rest of his notes, frowning. “And… Talia says you know the rest of that, so…” When Stiles didn’t respond, Scott raised his eyebrows expectantly. 

“I can’t believe you brought notecards,” he said finally, leaning over to flip through a set of them. Never let it be said Scott didn’t follow through with his promises.

Scott’s face fell slightly, but he rallied quickly. “It’s confusing. I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget anything.” He pulled them out of Stiles’ hand. “Oh, by the way, I think I’m supposed to eat this or something.”

Stiles was appalled. “What? You’re joking.”

“Peter said so and he sounded serious, so…”

Stiles vibrated in place for a moment. Then he shot up, grabbing some of the notes. “Fucking Peter-“ 

They headed over to the kitchen and lit them on fire instead. Scott wasn’t instantly convinced of the rightness of this action. He continued to chew on the corner of a notecard, looking conflicted and muttering, everyone once in a while, “I don’t know, Stiles…”

By the time Stiles burnt the last notecard, that image of Scott was already scratching at something in his memory. It took a tilted head and curious sniff at ashes more before he understood. A loose end, adrift in his tired mind, suddenly snapped taut.

“You’re the wolf who found me after Lydia’s party,” Stiles announced. There was something sharp and accusing in that statement. 

Stiles hoped that, if anything, Scott recognized that it wasn’t aimed at him.

There was a long pause, then- “Dude, I wasn’t going to let you wander off alone. You were hurt and angry-“

“-and stupid and reckless and _drunk_ ,” Stiles railed, pissed at himself.

“-and still absolutely worthy of my time and efforts,” Scott said, forcing Stiles to look at him. His eyes were earnest, begging Stiles to understand. “You’re always worth my time, even when I’m not giving it to you.”

Stiles thought of the many legged timeline creature. When it went up in flames, it almost took the drapes with it. He lifted a shoulder, ears heating up. “You were busy. I get it now.” He frowned when that reminded him of something. “Hey, how did you get involved?”

“Oh yeah. I got bit!”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

Gerard eluded death and successfully tainted a naiad. But he hadn’t realized he would have to play the waiting game so long. The naiad didn’t budge and lashed out at him every time he came close, never really dropping into the cocoon phase the Russian hunter notes talked about. Transformation was a lie anyways, so Gerard set himself up for failure, but he didn’t know that.

He needed time.

In September, Gerard ran across Scott, alone in the woods. He turned him and trapped him in the woods, trying to force him to hunt with him and cement their beta-alpha bond. Scott resisted and, after three days, managed to escape. Talia found him and led him home.

“But she was like, ‘hey, everything’s going to be alright, we’re going to handle it’, but, like…” Scott grasped at the air, visibly frustrated. “It wasn’t? They didn’t? And they completely downplayed the whole werewolf thing too! I didn’t even know it was going to be a problem until I almost attacked you in the locker room.”

“Me? What? When was that?”

“After my first game.” When Stiles stared at him, blank-faced, Scott rolled his eyes. “After my first _good_ game.”

“ _Oh._ ”

“Anyway…”

That was the first clue in a long line of suspicions that make it hard for Scott to trust Talia Hale. Nevertheless, he endured and spent his first full moon in the Hales’ basement. The family kept tightlipped about the whole situation, but continued to protect Scott from Gerard at every angle. 

Unable to get at Scott, Gerard went after Erica, Boyd, and Isaac. 

“Dude, you are not feeling guilty about that.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Scott demanded. They’d relocated to the couch at this point, and Scott’s fist were twisted up over his knees. “I mean, Gerard didn’t even- what he did to me was bad. What he did to them was worse. He took apart Isaac’s dad and Erica was hurt so badly, we weren’t even sure she would live, let alone turn. He hurt them because of me. Because the Hales were teaching me control. Because I wasn’t-“

“Stop,” Stiles said firmly.

Scott closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. But he listened and continued with his story. “Gerard learned after me. He kept them on a tighter leash. He sent them after me eventually. It was going to be their first hunt together.” This thought made him grim and dark eyed. 

“Wait, you’re BFFs with your teenage assassins?” Stiles shook his head incredulously. “You’re like a cartoon, you know that?” 

Scott ducked his head shyly. “They’re not assassins. They’re just-”

Stiles scooted close. “How did Jackson turn?”

Scott looked surprised. “How did you know-“

Stiles gestured at his face. “A naiad mind melded with me like a Vulcan; how do you think I know?” he said impatiently. “But you pulled rank on him or something. True Alpha, right?” Scott muttered something annoyed about it being his story, but Stiles ignored him—he was too excited now. “Show me your eyes.”

Scott hesitated. Then he pushed his hair away from his forehead—like it was in the way, the dork—and flashed red gleaming eyes. Then he abruptly sat back, posture unthreatening. He watched Stiles carefully, clearly worried. 

“Cool,” was all Stiles said, checking that off his mental list. He scooted closer again. “Now show me your teeth.”

Scott balked at that. “ _What?_ ”

“What?” Stiles scowled at him. “I’m engaging in science, Scott. Science you’ve denied me for year, by the way. So humor me! Shift!”

A lot of things were said. A lot of feelings were hurt. A lot of distance was put between them these last few years, but there was always going to be a part of Stiles and Scott that was just them, together. Scott following and participating, Stiles leading and competing.

And Stiles was always going to be the King of Bad Ideas. And Scott was always going to play along, even if it was just once. Scot _shifted._

“Do you really need to my- agueff.”

“Don’t talk with my hands in your mouth!”

“Don’t stick your hands in my- Stiles, stop yanking on my ears! Why are you so interested?”

Something was building up in Stiles, something fragile and forgotten. Something bright and hopeful and maybe even happy, but he was having a hard time handling it. So he snapped scathing at Scott, hissing, “You’ve been hiding this for years, dude. Of course I want to see everything. You’re so… freaking...” Frustrated, Stiles vibrated in place before angrily blurting out, “Cool!”

At that, Scott’s apprehension melted like a snowflake in the sun. He lit up like a Christmas tree—then promptly turned into a giant wolfy puppy with a bushy, wagging tail. 

Despite himself, Stiles couldn’t stop himself from making a high pitched noise of glee. Then logic kicked in.

“Wait. What happened to your clothes?”

-

High school came to an end, like most things. Classes slowed down to a standstill. Student efforts waned. Even the teachers didn’t seem to have the heart for tests and assignment, not with summer so close.

Even so, Stiles was still learning things every day. 

For instance, he found out the terrible trio didn’t dislike him as much as he thought. If anything, the thing he’d been mislabeling as hatred was actually just reticence, and it was there for a good reason. See, every other week, Scott apparently had a habit of announcing he was going to tell Stiles everything—about Gerard, about Beacon Hills, and, most importantly, about the werewolves that live there.

Erica, Boyd, and Isaac accepted this every time. But when Scott continued to stall, chickening out, the three of them looked at Stiles with more and more suspicion, wondering what he’d done to convince Scott that day that telling Stiles would be dangerous for them all.

Now that he knew, now that he was barely reacting, they immediately absorbed Stiles into their group. It was there that Stiles learned that Erica was sunshine-y—both bright and harsh at the same time. He learned Boyd was companionable and prone to dry sarcasm, which Stiles enjoyed. He learned that Isaac… well, he didn’t learn anything about Isaac, who was still a dick. But he was now the sort of one that would nod, acknowledging him, and that was doable.

Still, though, he was learning, and he wasn’t the only one. But the hardest lesson to swallow was yet to come. 

He was at graduation practice, the last and third of its kind, sweating hours before the actual event in his black graduation gown. His mortarboard was wedged under one of his sweaty arms and he’d placidly followed Boyd away from the group during one of their breaks. He used his cap as a fan, raising his eyebrows as Boyd stopped right in front of the side fence of the school.

He didn’t have to wait—still dressed in her own gown, Erica parkoured over the fence a moment later, armed with slushies from the local convenience store. She even had one for Stiles. 

“Did anyone miss me?” she asked, preening when Stiles immediately complimented her skills. 

“The principal thinks you’re in the bathroom,” Isaac offered, slinking in from out of nowhere like a bad tempered cat. He immediately dived into a status report on the senior prank gossip. 

Like all the rest of them, Isaac liked to show off his superior hearing, but this was one area Stiles didn’t mind his ego. Too much work had gone into this. Their senior prank—unleashing a bunch of roosters the last day of junior and sophomore testing—was well underway. Administration was still under the impression they were going to throw a mattress in the pool like Class ’12, Class ’11, and Class ’10.  
Psh. How unoriginal.

Apparently, the lacrosse team had labeled the roosters one through eight, skipping two, four, and seven—an oldie, but a goodie. Stiles approved. Served the younger classmen right for whining about how the seniors “got to get out of school two days earlier.” 

Hey. They suffered for this, okay? It was hot, they got yelled at, and they had to keep doing the same stupid thing over and over. It wasn’t fun.

Stalling, they hung out there for a little while longer, sucking away at their illicit slushies and complaining about everything from the rising temperature to the smell of old plastic warming in the sun. 

Scott found them five minutes later. He grinned, like he always did when he saw them together. This time, though, he said, “See, I always knew you’d get along!”

All four of them froze. Years of “yes Stiles, no Stiles” had taken their toll on their tempers. Scott got three slushies and a mortarboard thrown at him.

Scott whined, flicking off a clump of cherry-flavored ice off his abdomen. His ear was stained blue. Isaac crowded him grumpily, helping him brush it off. He offered to escort Scott to the bathroom to finish up “if you can’t handle it yourself”. The cranky behavior hid guilt, it seemed. After all, Isaac’s slushie was the one that hit him in the face.

Stiles, on the other hand, had aimed specifically for his crotch. No guilt here. Not a single shred.

Distracted for a moment, Stiles saw a flash of red hair sail around the corner of a building. His stomach dropped. Dread rolled in. At the same time, he steeled his spine. 

It was about time he handed this, wasn’t it? 

Stiles walked away from the terrible trio and Scott. “I need to talk to someone,” he said vaguely as an explanation. Then he stopped, focus sharpening, and looked over his shoulder. “Don’t eavesdrop.”

“Nope, totally gonna listen in,” Erica said unhelpfully.

“We are equal opportunity eavesdroppers,” Boyd commented. Isaac ignored him, too focused on straightening the fall of Scott’s graduation gown until it was “just right”.

Stiles didn’t bother arguing. He just shook his head and went after that illusive flash of red hair—the one and only Lydia Martin.

The gowns were unflattering, loose and baggy fabric with no chance at customization beyond what accolades the school was willing to rest on your shoulders. The most you could hope for in one of these gowns was to look alright. Clean. Vaguely symmetrical.

Lydia, naturally, looked stunning, thick wavy hair settling delicately on her shoulders. She lacked the cap at the moment and her many awards, but she still blew everyone else out of the water without even trying.

And more impressive, Stiles felt, was the death glare she was shooting him in the reflection of her compact once she realized she was being followed. She closed with a nasty clap, spinning to face him. 

Stiles winced, rubbing the back of his head. He didn’t know where to start, where to start explaining. “Lydia, I-“ 

“Werewolves. Naiads. Stupid teenage boys and mind control powers,” she bit out. When Stiles stared at her, stunned, her lip curled in an unfriendly way. “Yeah, I know.”

“I- wow. Okay.” Stiles blinked rapidly.

Her smile was brittle, knife-like. “It wore off the second the naiad died,” she explained further. If anything, it seemed like another nail in his coffin, as far as she was concerned. 

But Stiles couldn’t think anything beyond a profound sense of _relief._ He let a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding. “Good. I’m glad- I’m glad.” He paused before whispering, with all sincerity, “I’m sorry.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Her mouth tightened instantly and her eyes darkened. Prodding him in the chest with one sharp nail, she hissed, “First of all, _how dare you_. And second? I’m not forgiving you. Ever.” Every word came with a jab until his back hit the wall of the neighboring building.

Alarmed, Stiles lifted his hands, defending himself. “You don’t have to, I just…” 

“I am _livid_ ,” she enunciated with deadly accuracy. “Furious. Pissed. _Betrayed._ Because as much as I thought you were a tool and a mildly intelligent mouth breather, I thought…” Her eyelashes fluttered tellingly before she snapped, harshly, “I thought you were my _friend_.” 

“I am! I-” Stiles looked left and right, realizing they were gathering an audience. Other seniors were clumping together, pointing their way. He pitched his voice low, whispering, “I tried to make it better. I flipped it around, I-“

“Shut up,” Lydia ordered. His mouth snapped shut. “That first time was a mistake. I get that. I remember how much you panicked. I’m not mad because you lost fucking control.”

“Then-“

“I’m mad about the _second_ time,” she hissed with feeling, frustration and hurt bleeding into her tone. “The one where you made it impossible to even decide what I felt about that situation, or you!” She let out a shaky, unsteady breath before firing at him, “I could have helped you, asshat! And I would have. But you decided for me how much I was going to get involved, and that’s not okay. I don’t let my werewolf girlfriend get away with that. I’m certainly not going to give you a free pass.”

Stiles wilted. Everything he was about to say to defend himself had just withered up in his mouth. “Oh.”

Many emotions twisted Lydia’s face then. “Oh,” she echoed mockingly, bitterly. Then, for the briefest of seconds, her face crumpled in something that couldn’t be anything but true pain. It shook Stiles to the core.

Just as quickly, though, it disappeared. She lifted her chin regally, eyes clear. “I will not have you ruin this ceremony for me,” she informed him. “I am going to enjoy myself. I am going to kill it at this valedictorian speech and I am going to make Mr. Parsons-Cook fucking cry.” 

Parsons-Cook was the stoic wood shop teacher who had made the mistake of giving Lydia an A- in freshman year. A couple of months ago, they would have been conspiring about how to best break down the unbreakable teacher.

Stiles was just starting to get how much he’d wrecked, and he felt worse. Because while he was convinced of the righteousness of his action, even when paired with guilt, Lydia was the one who had to deal with the fallout.

“I don’t want to do this feeling shitty because of Stiles Stilinski,” she was saying. Her eyes were sharp with determination. “So here’s what we’re going to do instead.” 

Stiles yelped in surprise when she dragged him around the corner by the ear, out the sight of their crowd. She let him go after a moment, charging forward with her plan before Stiles even had the chance to straighten to his full height. 

“We’re turning this into a transaction,” she said briskly. “You took something you weren’t entitled to, my agency. Fine. Can’t change that. But you will pay for what you’ve done.” Her voice was dark and stern. “You owe me a favor, Stilinski. A huge one I can call up on at any time.”

Still stinging from the experience with the naiad, Stiles defaulted to humor. “Up to and including a dead body?” Now was not the time to joke, apparently. The look Lydia threw at him sent chills down his spine. Unsettled, Stiles blinked rapidly, nodding. “Okay, up to and including a dead body. Right.”

Lydia narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Up to and including-“

“-a dead body,” Stiles finished, this time completely serious. She paused at that. “What I did… it wasn’t right. Whatever you need, Lydia. Just ask.”

Lydia stared at him for a long moment, gaze critical. But whatever expression he had on his face must have spoke to his sincerity. She uncoiled, no longer ready to strike. Stiles gazed back at her steadily. He wasn’t looking for forgiveness. He wasn’t looking for renewed friendship either. 

Just a chance to do right by someone he wronged.

Finally, accepting this, she nodded. “Don’t expect a shout out in my speech,” she said airily before sailing off.

Stiles waited for a moment before sagging against a light post, letting out a relieved sigh. At this point, he was lucky not to be mentioned at all. Who knew what reputation damaging things she could say about him from such an exalted platform?

-

Graduation was long, hot, and boring. 

Yup. That was about it. Nothing special to share with the young’uns. 

Lydia’s speech was moving, of course. Parsons-Cook was bawling by the end of it, but Stiles remembered little else outside of that. In fact, the most Stiles remembered was sweating in his gown, fanning himself with his mortarboard fretfully. In the haze of trying not to melt, he remembered a brief moment of childlike glee when someone pulled out an inflatable ball for the masses of bored teenagers.

The reprieve didn’t last long. When administrators marched him out of the rows of chairs, Stiles solemnly held his cap over his heart--moment of silent for their unsung hero. 

Other than that, yeah. Pretty boring. 

His mind wandered, fried from the sun. The future came up at one point and proved to be a thick enough topic to chew. 

Stiles was going to a local community college. Early on, he considered going to a four-year, but stopped applying when he realized it wasn’t happening. His dad was still paying off medical bills from his mom, after all—and even more now, what with his and Stiles’ recent hospital stays. Also to Stiles’ disadvantage was their family income. He was also in the awkward position where his dad was making too much for traditional sources of aid, but making too little to actually help Stiles out. 

His dad had been pretty upset by this—still was, actually, but the heat of it had tapered off. Together, they’d come up with a five year plan for college, which involved Stiles working, saving up money, and then transferring after a few years. He’d had to flap a number of letters about transfer scholarships in front of his dad’s face before he could even get him to agree, but it worked in the end. They had a good plan and they were sticking to it—together.

His dad was already starting. Not letting a little encounter with a murderous alpha werewolf slow him down, he’d already secured three job offers for Stiles, each more heinous than the next. It was, Stiles figured, his dad’s passive aggressive way of getting back at Stiles for the massive chewing out Stiles leveled at him once he could stay awake for more than twenty minutes. It was a good long one too, full of topics such as self-preservation, keeping secrets from your son, and accuracy with one’s own service piece. His dad hadn’t appreciated a second of it.

Stiles needed to find his own job, and quick.

He wasn’t alone in his plan. He found out just a week ago that Scott, Boyd, and Erica were going to the same school too. Isaac, on the other hand, was focusing on maintaining a job—he’d already been through three. Having the sleeping schedule of a sloth, as it turned out, did not jive well with his employers. Noted and recorded.

Lydia was going straight to Stanford, unsurprisingly. Danny was heading off to MIT and Heather had a place at UCSB, studying marine life. Something something conservation, from what he understood, which was very little. He was proud of them nevertheless, even Danny who he barely knew anymore.

But as impressive as they were, they were mostly in the minority. The recession hit at the wrong time. As a collective, the seniors were jaded, distrustful in the lie of college—thousands and thousands of dollars of debt for a career that wouldn’t be waiting for them in the end. Teachers and counselors were distressed over the whole thing, holding conferences and PTA meetings all year long. 

Despite their best efforts, this year marked the lowest high school to college admission rate in fifteen years for their school.

Stiles couldn’t bring himself to care. He was just… really tired. Drained. Wrung out.

But he was looking forward to the chance to build himself back up again. It wasn’t his fault that the best way to do just that didn’t fit some principal’s cookie-cutter idea of a “successful student”.

He waited his turn to grab his fake piece of paper—the real degrees were being held like hostages on lockdown to ensure no one mooned the mayor. As his row queued up, he looked around at the crowd for the first time. Cora was there, eyes only for Lydia. If he looked hard, he could see his dad and Melissa, sharing the same bench. Talia and Peter Hale up in the stands too, the second more grumpy than the first, who cheered and waved a flag with their school colors. 

Still, he looked. And kept looking, heart leaping every time he saw the suggestion of a familiar dark head of hair. It fell just as quickly.

At what point did space become active and willful avoidance? He was afraid to ask.

“What the fuc- who named this kid?” Finstock blustered. Then he squinted down at the paper. “Oh, wait, I know this one. _Stiles Stilinski!_ ” 

Throwing on a smile for the crowd, Stiles headed up the steps to the podium.

He tripped over a cord.

-


	8. Epiloge

July 2013

Summer out of high school felt pretty much the same as summer out of junior year. He was even starting up school again in a few months, just like his old high school peer. Except this time it was somewhere entirely new. He was tentatively thrilled about that.

He took a summer position at the WWEC. Before, Morrell made some noise about finding room in the budget about hiring him. Stiles was genuinely shocked when she called, revealing that she had followed through. 

It was great and familiar, but also held fairly separate from the new exciting portions of his life—werewolves and nemetons and magic, oh my. He needed that divide more than he expected because, as much as he enjoyed learning about Scott’s world, a lot of it was very overwhelming. 

He got to spend time with Heather too, who was bumped up to full time. Passionate about conservation of all forms, she regularly led the charge on new and ambitious projects at work—and, although his real job description fell somewhere around handing out pamphlets and scheduling appointments with summer camps, Stiles inevitably found himself dragged out into the woods to follow some rumor about some nearly extinct species in the area.

If their nature preserve really was the home of some many endangered creatures, Morrell really needed to hire some werewolves to sniff them out.

Stiles complained about Heather a lot, loudly, lovingly, but also enviously. She knew what she was doing with her life. Stiles? Not so much. He’d wanted to follow his dad’s footsteps, once upon a time, but his faith in them plummeted. Sure, Parrish found his dad. Parrish even found him hours later, minutes after the naiad passed.

But during that critical time where they could have intervened and saved his dad from getting hurt, the deputies of Beacon Hill basically did nothing. Stiles knew why, of course, knowing the logic and the laws behind it, but the way everyone just stood around, hands tied behind their backs, really shook him.

He couldn’t be a cop. Not now.

As it was, all he could do was keep moving forward. For him, it was the WWEC in the morning, then Scott and the others in the afternoon. And before Scott, but after clocking, there was this too.

This one ritual.

Stiles stopped next to the mailboxes—shelves with tiny slots, he wasn’t going to front. He reached down, pulling out a dented can from the recycling bin and setting it on the corner of the desk. He stared at it solemnly, imagining, for a moment, flicking it off the surface with the tip of his pointer finger.

It didn’t move. But, sometimes, it did. He didn’t know if it was wind then, or some lingering power, but every day, he did this test because he still wasn’t sure he followed through properly with Joy’s request. Even though his head screamed at him, saying everything was okay, that there wasn’t a single mind he’d been able to read or twist to his commence, he didn’t stop.   
And he wouldn’t stop. Not until he knew the truth.

Today, nothing moved. Stiles smiled broadly, tossing the can back in his bin. He pulled his mail out of his shelf, heading out with a hum and a lighter heart. He had two envelopes today. One held his precious check, the other…

Two tickets to the summer fair? Who the hell would send him that? Stiles stopped just outside the WWEC, his nose wrinkling. The fair was good, no doubt. He’d gone to with Scott every year up until freshman year. He went one more time, pretending to happen upon his boyfriend every two rides for the shake of the watching crowd. He had fun then too, but after…

It wasn’t worth the pain.

Frowning, he tucked the tickets back in the envelope, then into his back pocket. He faced the parking lot, taking in a deep breath of clean summer air.

He promptly choked on it. His jeep was in sight, as it always was, and, leaning against the hood it was a familiar sight—Derek. Freaking. Hale. 

Stiles recoiled, feeling distinctly wrong footed and awkward under Derek’s neutral stare, like his tongue was three sizes too big for his mouth.

He saw the picture resting against one of Derek’s jean-covered thighs. Then he was charging up to Derek indignantly, jabbing a finger at the frame accusingly. 

“You did not bring that here!”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Derek drawled. He’d seemed smaller somehow, by himself. Forlorn, even. But now, he was blowing up like a big, smug balloon. “You spelled ‘life’ wrong, by the way.”

Stiles squawked in outrage and tried to rip the picture out of Derek’s hand. The werewolf, naturally, had no trouble bending and leaning just out of reach for Stiles’ embarrassed, grubby fingers.

But the effort dislodged the tickets in his back pocket. They fell down to the ground—the envelope too. Stiles instantaneously stepped around them awkwardly, finally bending to pick them up. No point in ruining free tickets. 

It was only after Stiles stood again that he thought he look at Derek for a reaction. Would he think Stiles was just going with Scott? Or would he think Stiles was dating again?

Would he care, either way?

Derek registered the tickets visibly, but didn’t look surprised. But it wasn’t the sort of surprise of the apathetic bystander. It was more invested in that. More nervous, even.

Suspicion curled in his mind. He flipped the envelope over, looking at his name again and, now that he thought about it?

That was definitely Derek’s handwriting.

Stiles traced the generous path of the S. “You’re not mad at me anymore.”

“Scared for you,” Derek corrected quickly. Stiles looked up. It seemed important to Derek, that Stiles knew that. “Not mad. Never mad. I…” Derek swallowed visibly, his eyes clouding over. “I keep thinking about what-ifs.” He shook his head. “I led you to Piper. I put you in his path. What if Gerard killed you? What if-” 

“What if you’d told me about being a werewolf?” Stiles countered. That got him Derek’s pale eyed gaze once more. He held it firmly, closing the distance between them. “What if you trusted me, trusted us enough to know that Peter wouldn’t break us?”

“I’m not stronger than Erik,” Derek whispered. “Not stronger than you.”

Frustration bubbled under Stiles’ skin. “Maybe not. But I would have dragged you with me, if I had known there was something to drag.” Derek didn’t disagree. Stiles sighed, gentling his approach. 

He tried to be patient, tried to be kind. He pressed the tickets to Derek’s chest, asking slowly, “What do you want from me?”

“A redo,” Derek said immediately. “A blank slate. For the both of us.” There was tentative hope in his eyes. 

Stiles wasn’t sure if he could do that. Especially now, after so much distance had come between them. After so many misunderstandings, after so many lies of omission.

And yet, when Stiles was struggling with the naiad, Derek offered him a new lead. When the naiad’s song had him wandering, Derek followed him to watch his back. When Stiles discovered the true monstrous nature of his telepathy, who offered to be his training dummy but Derek?

Derek, Derek, _Derek_.

Stiles bit his lip. He stared down at the floor. He hadn’t defaced Derek’s frame for nothing, had he? Nothing had changed between now and then. Nothing had changed between now and when they used to date.

Stiles Stilinski was always going to want to be with Derek Hale.

Derek nodded slowly, expression grave as he read Stiles’ face. He clasped Stiles’ hand to his chest, cradling it softly. “Don’t worry about it,” he said soothingly. “Just know that, no matter what happens, I will always lov-“ 

Stiles had covered his mouth with his own—it was a strong kiss, even a little mean. Stiles bit himself in the process, but it was worth it, if only for the stunned look on Derek’s face.

“Try to look a little less desperate, Hale,” Stiles commented, smirking. “No one says I love you on the first date.” When Derek continued to stare at him, uncomprehending, he let wore down the edges of the expression, pressing a soft smile into Derek’s chin.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “Let’s hit reset.” 

Galvanized, Derek kissed him back fiercely, pinning Stiles’ head between his warm hands. Finally, they were on the same page.

Stiles grinned dopily when Derek released him to breathe. “Hey, if you’re lucky, I’ll even put out on the first date.” Derek growled at him, which was exactly what Stiles wanted to hear. “Hey, knock that off. You might make me think you’re a werewolf or something…”

Snickering, Stiles smothered his face against one Henley-covered shoulder.

Above him, Derek sounded resigned. “You’re never going to let that go, are you.”

_Never_ , he thought, hands clutching on Derek’s arms. 

-

“Without a conduit, the corruption in the nemeton has nowhere to go. Even now, the forest is recovering.”

Peter thought about the ichor and tar he could see—that all werewolves could see—when shifted around the Preserve the last year or so. It was retreating. The slow poisoning of the woods had lifted. Trees were growing more leaves. Grass formed in thick clumps instead of sparse and thin patches. Wildlife all over no longer spooked at the sound of rustling bush.

“But Talia,” he continued, “That doesn’t mean that the corruption is _gone_.”

“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

They were on the porch together. Peter was standing, vibrating with frustration. His sister, on the other hand, was sitting on the railing, an open book propped over knee. She looked out into the woods, a look of hard-won peace settling on her features.

“I’ve been dealing with it longer than you have. I’ve lost more to it than you ever will,” Talia finished. “Do not mistake my caution for inaction or ignorance.”

Peter bit down on a growl. “But you still don’t know what it is, do you?” 

“I know what is has done, what is doing, and what it will do.” She turned her attention to her book. “That is enough.”

“It is not,” he retorted. She cocked her head, as if listening. “If we don’t know what it is, then we don’t know how much we’re underestimating it, and I suspect we’re underestimating it a lot.” When she just flipped a page, as calm as ever, he snapped, “Our oldest and strongest enemy is merely a puppet of it. Maybe Gerard wasn’t possessed, maybe he wasn’t directly influenced, but you cannot think that all that happened to our family is mere coincidence!”

Peter’s mind raced with the possible. Gage and Erik were the worst thing that ever happened to him, but he always knew what happened with his nephew and his girlfriend wasn’t his fault. Sure, a small kernel of doubt surfaced in nightmares and in Derek’s accusing stare, but there had been something else there that night. Something malevolent, something watching.

The same something corrupting the nemeton. And it killed Erik and Gage, not Peter.

Peter hadn’t been in the wrong, not really. Gage’s humanity did need to be fixed if Erik wanted to keep her—he’d been right about that the whole time. And Peter’d been in full control of everything they needed to handle that situation… until that one night. Until Erik took off into the preserve with his girlfriend cradled in his arms.

“What it is or where it is. Eventually, it will stop being content with just influencing people.” Despite himself, he felt a little flutter of panic in his chest, remembering it. Remembering being on his knees in the mud, his mind cracking under the horror of what he’d done. Remembering even in that moment the presence of someone there, watching. Someone more than his alpha, more than some weak ineffective naiad. 

“Talia,” he said, his voice cracking, “it’s _hungry_.”

Talia sighed, slamming her book closed. She hopped off the railing, leaning up against it instead. She turned towards the descending sun, looking upon it. “I don’t what it is or what it wants or even how it got there. But I do know this. There is hope.”

Peter stared at the back of her head baffled. “Hope?” 

“Yes,” she said peacefully. She nodded once, as if to herself. “We will figure out a way to deal with it. The nemeton will be purified. The creature will be subdued. And Beacon Hill will be as it has been since our ancestors moved in. Protected and secure. Until then…” 

Talia trailed off. Then she turned on Peter, eyes sparking with the glow of a powerful alpha. “Stay away from the nemeton.”


End file.
